Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

Cinco Para Cinco de Mayo

Posted on by

Smile More

The city is so beautiful right now; all the flowering trees are in bloom, and every day is a little bit more colourful. When Rex stops to sniff, so do I.

We came across a little painted rock on the path the other day.

We both obliged.

It was funny to find that rock as I had just finished reading a chapter in Radical Acceptance about Unconditional Friendliness, and the importance of smiling to one’s spiritual health. Buddha, the book noted, is always portrayed with a smile to illustrate this concept of Unconditional Friendliness, which means to accept and meet feelings, people, and situations with openness.

In recent years women in particular – for good reason – have bristled at being told to smile, but honestly? Smiling is pretty great when it’s on your own terms.

I was in Costco last week and it was pure chaos – this may break the already well-established record for futile statements – but I made a conscious effort to smile amidst the pure mayhem that is endemic within that store. I will tell you that while it did not make the people blocking the aisles to get their free samples of sausage slices move out of the way, it did make the entire experience better. I welcome you with Unconditional Friendliness, I thought while maneuvering around them, I say yes to this experience. My Unconditional Friendliness was challenged in the dairy section, and wavered a lot in produce, but I kept my probably-low-level psychotic smile as I breathed through it. By the time I got to the checkout, there were no lines, and so I am going to conflate correlation with causation for my own purposes.

Science, Bitches

Typically I listen to podcasts while walking with Rex, and most of the time those podcasts are as frivolous as can be, but occasionally I will listen to something serious about economics, history, or science. I was listening to an Ologies podcast about Salugenology, the science of social prescriptions that increase health and well being, the categories of such being nature, movement, art, service, and community. It was a fascinating interview and I immediately put the author’s book, The Connection Cure, on hold at the library. I haven’t been reading much non-fiction lately, but I feel sure that I will love this, and you can be sure that I will report back.

On the topic of non-fiction, I have been approached more than once in the past several months by people asking about my newly-written, but not yet ready for publication, book. Strangely, the conversation immediately pivots from I heard you wrote a book to I never read novels, only serious non-fiction. I read to learn. Which, well. There is a lot of subtext to unpack there, and a lot of opportunity to practice Unconditional Friendliness.

Bad Bad Bad Bad Books, You Make Me Feel So Good

The great thing about books and literature is that there is something for everyone; there are countless books of all subjects and genres. On yet another walk I was listening to yet another podcast, this one by two women who have a romance publishing company. One of the hosts said something interesting: when it comes to books there is a subset of people who consider a book “bad” if one of the characters makes a decision that the reader disagrees with, or if the characters are not likeable.

I don’t belong to that subset. Three of the best books I read in 2024 had extremely unlikeable characters, or characters who made dubious decisions. Sometimes those characters were in both categories. Long Island Compromise was a work of art, it was so smart and so funny and such a great commentary on our society, and every single character was absolutely atrocious. Margo’s Got Money Troubles concerned a very young woman who becomes pregnant via an affair with her professor, and opens up an Only Fans account in order to make money. My Last Innocent Year also concerned a professor-student relationship that could never end well. I guess I’m part of the subset who really enjoys ambiguous endings, unwritten backstories, and layered stories. This is not to say that I don’t occasionally enjoy a cheery, predictable romance or bouncy celebrity memoir or even a serious non-fiction tome that increases my personal font of knowledge! But the only way I will consider a book bad is if it bores me, if the writing is poor, or if it doesn’t make sense. And yet, books are so subjective, one person’s I’d give it zero stars if I could is another person’s five star winner. It’s an interesting distinction: is the book objectively bad, or did you just not like it?

Taking It Personally

I saw a quote on Kari’s blog (HI KARI) that really resonated: If you understood how frequently people cope by projecting, you would learn to take nothing personally. I feel like we all should remember this all the time, both in our interactions with others, and our own responses to situations.

I’m a Creep, I’m a Weirdo

Speaking of responses to situations, a couple of days ago I had a notification of a comment on one of my Facebook posts. I looked at it, and then looked again.

This post was on the Calgary Yoga Community page, in response to a request for studio recommendations, and was written by me in November 2015. The commenter, John R Evans, says I was wondering if we could be friends, I already tried sending you a request, but it didn’t go through. Accept my sincere friendship, and please add me up if you don’t mind. THANKS.

First of all, Unconditional Friendliness does not extend to robot men on Facebook. Second of all, I’m sure the request did go through, but I would have instantly deleted it after seeing that the poster in question “works at US Army Fort Knox” and is “widowed.”

Of course I know this is not a real person, but still, it feels creepy. I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo. Fun fact: until only a few years ago, I thought the lyrics were I’m a creep, I’m a winner, and I always thought that’s so strange, it makes no sense, I guess they’re being sarcastic? Maybe I’m the weirdo here!

Weekly Reading

Caroline. This was a reread for me, first having read it in 2018, but it my friend Laura (HI LAURA) who, I have mentioned many, many times, runs Melissa Gilbert’s Modern Prairie book club, told me that this was their latest pick. So why not? It retells Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, from Caroline’s point of view, with a few interesting and notable changes – those that were based on actual census data and not from Rose Wilder Lane’s libertarian editing. The wider story is about manifest destiny and fear of the indigenous people who they were displacing, which is hard to swallow these days. Still, I found it was such a thought-provoking read about what an incredibly difficult struggle daily life was back then. It must have been terrifying to be a woman – pregnant, no less, with two small children – riding into the unknown in a covered wagon and trying to figure out how to just make do with what she had. Imagine being pregnant and unsure if there would be a woman to help you with the birth! The reliance on good neighbours and how the very few that they had literally saved their lives is fascinating as well, and is something that is glossed over in the original books to reinforce the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps, be indebted to no one” theme.

Death By A Thousand Cuts. Last summer when my friend Jen was visiting (HI JEN), we went to Mosaic Books, and I picked this up. Then I had a flood of library books, forever, so I put it on my shelf. Friends, I forgot about it! When Jen was here last weekend, she was perusing my shelves for a book to borrow while she was visiting, and found it, still with the receipt. Didn’t you buy this book when we went to the bookstore? I had to right my wrongs and read it immediately after she left. And wow, wow, wow! It is so good! This collection of short stories is compelling and moving, and I devoured it. Every time I’d finish a story I’d think okay, just ONE more. Incredible! And the author is Canadian! You can bet I’m going to read everything she’s written now.

Three Days In June. This author is hit or miss with me, and this book was definitely a hit. I really enjoyed this tiny slice of life that concerned a woman attending her daughter’s wedding, with the day before and after. There was so much humanity in this little story, I loved it.

I wish you could smell these photos! You’ll just have to imagine – they are glorious! I hope you have a beautiful week, friends. xo

Let The Music Play

Posted on by

Turkish Delight, On A Moonlit Night

I am currently in a delightful chapter in my life in which my children are grown and my husband and I are healthy and mobile, and so we have big plans to do a lot of travelling. It’s a big world out there and I want to see as much as I can for as long as I can; no one knows what the future will bring, and so I want to experience as much of other countries and cultures as I can.

Recently we have been talking about Türkiye, which I briefly visited as a teen on a school trip, and would love to see a lot more of. Unfortunately, the planning for this trip may be the undoing of my sanity. Every time I hear, see, or even think of the word “Istanbul,” I immediately follow it up in my head with was Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople, been a long time gone, Constantinople. And that’s the best case scenario; frequently I will go through the entire song in my head before I can rest. Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turrrrrkkkkksss. Istanbullll.

I don’t know what percentage of my brain is dedicated to song lyrics and other quotations, but it’s significant. I wonder what incredible things I could accomplish, were I able to clear my mind of Getting Jiggy With It, a song that went through my head incessantly when I was writing my very last exam in grad school. I got an A in that exam, so I guess it all worked out, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really recovered from scribbling down equations to the mental chorus of no love for the haters the haters mad cuz I got floor seats at the Lakers see me on the fifty yard line with the Raiders.

Speaking of which, one only need say to me here’s the situation before I mentally reply my parents went away on a week’s vacation.

Does everyone’s mind work this way, or is it just me? One of my favourite scents from Bath and Body Works is Butterfly, and every time, every single time I select that body lotion post-shower, I hum to myself See the dog and butterfly, up in the air he likes to fly.

Seriously, if I could rid my mind of song lyrics, random quotations from movies, Seinfeld, and the Simpsons, along with toxic diet culture, I would be a fresh book waiting to be filled. Staring at the blank page before you…

It’s Not Easy Being Green

We’ve had quite a bit of rain lately, which means that everything is greening up. It’s also likely the reason Kermit was hanging out on my door last week. In any case, it’s officially Garden Season, so prepare yourselves for an onslaught of Garden Updates for the next six months or so. I planted my first rows of kale and spinach on the weekend, the berry patch is all budding, and my husband and I went to the plant nursery. It is way, way too early to plant tender veggies like tomatoes and peppers, and yet I came home with exactly that.

I’ll be bringing these in every night for the next month.
Housewarming gift from the incomparable Suzanne, (HI SUZANNE), relevant to my interests.

Oh, and on the topic of green things, I have an update to my avocado woes. I bought a bag of avocados at Superstore, and, like a person completely beaten down by life, expected nothing out of them. Why did I buy them then? I don’t know. Maybe there was a shred of hope left in my soul. But then when I cut them open, every last one was perfect. It was enough to restore my faith in the world.

Ladies, Leave Those Umbrellas At Home!

My dear friend Sandi (HI SANDI) invited me along with her sister to a paint night this week, and as usual, it was so much fun. I did have doubts about my own skills, however, when I saw the sample painting. My initial thought was no way, this is going to be a mess, but you know what, it turned out pretty well!

I will say that the teacher, as well as anyone else who walked behind me and observed my painting, said repeatedly oh, that’s so interesting, what you’re doing with the skirt. To pull a quote from one of my favourite Seinfeld episodes, WHAT? I HAD A DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION! And if you can name that deep cut episode off the top of your head, let me know and I will send you a prize. What will the prize be? I have no idea.

It reminded me of my probably long-deceased childhood piano teacher, Mrs. Rechel. Along with exam pieces for the Royal Conservatory, I was encouraged to choose some “modern” pieces to play for fun. Frequently I would be playing these pieces of choice for her, and her mouth would just be a thin line. Oh, that’s very interesting, she would say, or, in some cases, Hmm. It’s certainly different.

Hot Carl In The City

Speaking of things that are different, I was reminded this week of the day back in 2012, when a car parked in my neighbourhood had a license plate HOT CARL. I remember wondering about the owner of this car, if his name was Carl and he had very high self-esteem, and then someone pointed out to me that a Hot Carl is a sex act that involves feces. To this day I think about this. Was the car owner really into Hot Carls? Or was he just a guy named Carl who thought he was all that and a bag of chips? Or – and here’s another deep cut – was he a fan of The Simpsons? This mystery is one for the ages. It will never be solved. Unless, of course, he (I assume that this person is a he) reads this and chimes in. Carl, are you there?

I came across this thought circuitously, because Jenny (HI JENNY) had posted an interesting photo of a car, a Range Rover no less, that proclaimed across its rear window Make Money Not Friends. You know what, I admire that kind of honesty. I would rather see that then some asshole who is cutting people off and behaving badly with a bumper sticker saying Choose Kindness. At least with the Range Rover, you know where you stand, and you would also expect to be cut off in traffic. Although I guess it’s not comparable after all, since we don’t know where we stand with Hot Carl.

Speaking of traffic, on my walk the other day I saw a man on a motorcycle wearing a mascot head in the shape of the Easter bunny. I wish I had the wherewithal to take a photo but to be honest, I was too stunned. I hope he had a helmet on underneath.

Mom? Mom? Was that a giant rabbit?

Weekly Reading

Girl, Woman, Other. This book blew me away; it is a work of art. I love women’s stories and I love short stories, and this really delivered. Each of twelve chapters is the life story of a different woman, and all of those short stories are interconnected in some way. The women are Black and British, and all their stories are unique and yet universal. It’s incredible to me how a good short story writer can convey so much with such an economical use of words. The writing style of this book is powerful and moving and adds to the emotionality of the experience. Loved it!

Tiger Eyes. My reread of Judy Blume continues with this, which was absolutely not a favourite of mine as a youth, but it’s a really fascinating read as an adult in 2025. The premise is very sad; a teen girl’s father is shot to death in his corner store, and her family transplants to New Mexico to be with relatives during the aftermath. The town in New Mexico is Los Alamos which is famous for being the place in which the atomic bomb was developed, and which itself was populated by physicists who research that and other weaponry. It’s a wild setting for a YA story, particularly one that was published in 1981 during the Cold War. This completely went over my head when I read it around age 11, as did the themes of grief, loss, and depression. Blume is such a master of weaving such heavy topics with those of sex, alcohol use, and family troubles, topics of deep interest to young readers. It was great on the reread, and there is quite a bit about Oppenheimer and American foreign policy, as well as changing ideas about Native Americans. There is still a bit of dated language which is unsavoury for the current climate, but it would have been still ahead of its time.

Bite By Bite. My friend Laura (HI LAURA) has never steered me wrong yet. She said this was her favourite food memoir, and the words “food” and “memoir” perked up my ears. Wow, was this a joy to read. Every chapter focuses on a different food – the majority are fruits, many exotic fruits, but she also waxes poetic about foods as varied as black pepper, gyro, waffles, shave ice, and lumpia. This book focuses on the joy of eating and how foods build community and celebration, and it is truly a delight. Talk about leaving toxic diet culture behind – this just made me want to celebrate the many delicious flavours in this world. Now, did an essay about pawpaw – a fruit I have never seen, let alone tried – bring me to tears? It sure did.

On the topic of joy and food: the grapes have all been pruned and tied and are ready for spring. Please enjoy Rex enjoying the prunings! Happy April, friends. xo

Forward March

Posted on by

It’s a strange phenomenon that, no matter how long I’ve been away, it always takes the same amount of time to catch back up on life, which is two solid days. Three weeks, one week, four days: it’s all the same. It’s similar to Rex’s reaction to my return whether I’m picking him up from the pet resort or I’m coming back from grocery shopping: the extreme excitement is just the same.

Speaking of grocery shopping, I was at Superstore this week, and in the deli section I spotted Arlene. Arlene and her friend Adele walk three times a week on the same route that Rex and I often do; they are older ladies who always have a bag of dog treats with them for the pups they encounter. Of course, they adore jolly old Rex, and so I have had many interactions with them over the past year or so.

I approached Arlene to say hi, and she looked at me blankly. I realized that this was an out of context meeting, and so I said maybe you don’t recognize me without Rex! She had a strange look on her face, and said no, that’s not it. She reached out and touched my hair very gently and said you just look so…different. Your hair…

I started to laugh, realizing that she had never seen me post-shower, with clean hair and a full face of makeup. Normally she sees me in a toque, with only a swipe of mascara and tinted lip balm, because that is the minimum makeup I will leave the house in.

Someone else looks different around here, and that someone is Rex. It seems we have been catapulted into spring around here: we left in the snow and came back to spring weather, which is lovely. It also means that we are now firmly in Mud Season. Rex hadn’t been groomed since before Christmas, and because this is not my first Pet Resort Rodeo, I had booked him in to the groomer’s the day after we got back. That was not a minute too soon as he was, to put it mildly, filthy. But now he’s soft and velvety, and his paws were a pristine white for a new record of 15 hours.

Since we got home very late on Tuesday night, and since there is a three-hour time difference between here and Cancun, and since I really didn’t get a whole lot of restful sleep on my vacation due to continuous over imbibing of fun beverages, I was dragging last week. It reminded me of a question posed to me by Suzanne (HI SUZANNE), which is Do any eye creams/anti aging serums actually WORK? Or I guess I should ask you which ones do YOU use because you look fabulous. Well, colour me flattered, my friend! I will take that compliment happily, even though last week I felt much less than fabulous. Much, much less. In any case, I have a lot of thoughts about this question.

I think the word “work” is kind of relative, and that there are three big things to remember: a) as my older son told me a few months ago, you cannot stop the forward march of time, b) there is nothing that you can apply to your skin that will reverse what lack of sleep, lack of hydration, or too much hydration in the form of alcohol will do to your skin, particularly that under the eyes, and c) no cream will ever be the same as a surgical or cosmetic procedure. I will never forget the fancy retreat I was at with my husband’s work: I was speaking to a couple of lovely women who were from Houston, and when they revealed that they were five to ten years my senior, I gasped. Your skin is so fabulous! I said, Do you use a retinoid? Or something else? They looked at each other, and then at me with extreme pity. Oh honey, one said, Creams? Don’t waste your money. What you need to do is go to a doctor’s office.

So those are the caveats to what I’m about to discuss. I’m not interested in going to a doctor’s office, and while I drink a ton of water and prioritize rest, I am not going to give up my weekly wine or cocktail. And of course time takes its toll on us all. However! I do think there are some products that do help slow down the progress toward Apple Doll Face or, as I sometimes feel, The Crypt Keeper.

First – and I never think this needs saying, but then I hear anecdotal evidence that it DOES – wash off your makeup every night. Never go to bed with makeup on, it ruins your skin. It doesn’t matter how, it just matters that it is done.

Second, use a night cream. I currently use three different ones: Neutrogena Retinol Pro Eye Cream and Night Cream, and Cerave Hydrating Serum. These retinols mean business, and advertise that they are “not for beginners.” What I’m saying is that these are probably not appropriate for sensitive skin, but there are thousands of such products out there, the key is putting something on consistently each night after washing.

I am about to blow your mind. I recently discovered that the optimal way to apply undereye cream is to work from the OUTSIDE IN, using only your ring finger. I know! I had always gone from the inside out, but I do think it makes a real difference. It is not like the lines will disappear entirely, but as esteemed beauty editor Val Monroe so elliptically said, the lines around my eyes are the least unbeautiful ones. I will leave you to unravel that sentence.

Third, apply something for daytime. I like The Ordinary Caffeine Solution for under my eyes; it supposedly helps with puffiness and dark circles, and I think that’s moderately true. I also use The Ordinary Matrixyl 10% for my forehead and marionette lines. Doesn’t “marionette lines” sound so much nicer than the reality? I have recently switched from Smashbox’s Original Smooth and Blur primer to Resurface Smooth and Renew. I haven’t used it long enough to really report back on any changes or improvements, but what I have been using for at least three years now is Ilia’s Super Serum Skin Tint in SPF 40, and I love it.

Does any of this do anything for my skin? Empirically it’s impossible to tell as there is no control factor here; I’m not doing half my face to see how it fares compared with the product-free half. But it does make me feel good about myself. Yes, I look like I am almost fifty, because I am.

Speaking of the forward march of time, my husband and I watched the movie Conclave on the weekend, and this is remarkable for a number of reasons. I rarely watch movies because I am almost always bored or I fall asleep halfway through. I was interested, though, since we were recently in the Vatican, and also my husband read the book and enjoyed it a lot. This in itself is a weird role reversal, as he knew the entire plot of the movie; typically he is a person who wants to know nothing at all that is going to happen, whereas I need every spoiler possible. But it was a really good movie and I enjoyed it immensely.

How this ties in to the forward march of time is that in the first scene I gasped is that Ralph Fiennes? He’s such a good actor, but my main memory of him is from The English Patient. It’s strange to think how many times I watched that movie, given its length. What a sexy movie it is, filled with actors who I had – and still have – immense crushes on. Colin Firth! Willem Dafoe! Naveen William Sidney Andrews! And, of course, Ralph Fiennes, who had played such an intense and sexy character, hoo boy. His performance will flood the basement. I always thought, and still do, that Count Almasy would be great to have a hot and steamy fling with, but terrible to be in a relationship with. Imagine! You’d ask the guy to pick up the kids from school and he’d stare at you intensely; you’d be like oh GOD, we cannot have sex right now, the kids need to be picked up from school. “Honey, can you fill out these forms for the school?” “I do not WISH to write my NAME.”

Anyway, it was odd to me to have a picture of Ralph Fiennes in my head and then be faced with Ralph Fiennes now, thirty years after The English Patient. It would be like if I time travelled from 1995 to now and looked in the mirror, expecting a line-free face with a few errant pimples, a dark brown Rachel haircut, and super perky breasts to see myself now. Imagine how startling that would be.

Also startling was the music at the resort we were at last week. There were so many boppy dance remixes of beloved songs, like Eye in the Sky, for example. I love the Alan Parsons Project but it was a bit bizarre. The strangest by far was a cheerful dance remix of Wish You Were Here. Imagine Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage, but with a fast paced techno beat. I think the only song that would be stranger remixed in such a way would be Everybody Hurts.

I got so much reading done on that holiday, between humming along to the dance remixes of Your Song and Both Sides Now, so look for a book post later this week. Until then, happy March everyone! Take care of yourselves. March forward. xo

There’s Too Much Confusion, I Can’t Get No Relief

Posted on by

They’re Both White Guys

This is a strange confession to make, but I constantly get Keanu Reeves and Johnny Depp mixed up in my mind. Before you say anything, I know. I know! They are essentially opposites: one is famously kind, generous, and charitable, and one is absolutely not. One lost his longtime girlfriend in a car accident following the stillbirth of their daughter, the other is a domestic abuser. The only reason I can think of that they get mixed up in my head is that I watched them both on the big screen in my youth, formative movies like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Edward Scissorhands. They seem to be forever melded in my mind, which is terribly unfair to poor Keanu.

1984, Plus One

Engie (HI ENGIE) asked me what was the worst year of my life and although I don’t really like to relive or dwell on the past, particularly painful things, I will say without a doubt it was the year I was in fifth grade, 1985. It was, generally speaking, an upward trajectory after that. I’m not drawing any parallels here, but it’s interesting to note that Keanu came onto the scene in 1986, which was also the year of my favourite action movie of all time, Top Gun. Are these things related? Maybe!

The truth is that I think fifth grade is universally rough for girls, and it was terrible for me, and not just because I had an ugly home perm. (Engie also asked if I could erase one thing from my memory, what would it be, and that home perm might be up there, Steve.) But fifth grade. It was a time of friendship problems; I remember reading Cat’s Eye many years later and gasping because I felt so seen. Ten year old girls are absolutely vicious. Also, at that time I was wearing a bra and was the tallest girl and second tallest person in class, which might not seem like a big deal but it sure was. In the eighties, boys could run around, unchecked, snapping bra straps and making mean and bullying comments about girls and their anatomy, and that, in addition to the frenemies with whom I’d be best friends one day and then shunned the next, over and over, made that year miserable.

My cousin had a book called Girltalk, and I read it the summer after fifth grade. There was a section on friendship and to this day I remember this life-changing sentence: you don’t like everybody, so why should everybody like you? It was revolutionary and I still think about it all the time. Generally speaking I like most people, but it’s a good reminder that we are not going to be for everyone. I’m not saying my life completely improved because of that book, but it sure helped a lot.

Is This Really A Good Idea?

Speaking of the eighties, it looks like Netflix is rebooting Little House on the Prairie, and I have a lot to say about this. I know that I am a terribly pedantic person when it comes to adapting books to screen; I almost never think it is a good idea. The answer is almost always a teeth-gritting NO when I’m asked if I’ve seen the movie/ series/ show that was based on a book, particularly a beloved book. There are a few exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, I loathe the trend that everything must be adapted to be watched. Then again, should I ever be lucky enough to have my novel published and someone wanted to adapt it to the screen, I would sell out without a second thought. What can I say, I contain multitudes.

If you were a young girl in the late seventies and early eighties, it’s likely you watched the Little House on the Prairie series, and possibly you also read the books. I did both and it was an early lesson in the very loose way the words “based on” can be used. The television series was really a vehicle for Michael Landon to walk around as a shirtless hero; it was not at all like the books, except for the names of the characters. Or, I should say, SOME of the characters. There was a lot of artistic license taken here, for example, nowhere in the books was there a young girl named Sylvia who becomes pregnant after being raped by a weirdo blacksmith with a clown mask on, only to be saved from eternal shame of having a baby out of wedlock by falling off a ladder and dying.

I did love the books, because they were about a girl and her life, and if there is anything I want to read about in this world it is a girl and her life. I will not waste my one wild and precious life reading boring, male-centric stories. I just won’t! You can’t make me! But being charmed as a young girl reading about another young girl in a different place and time making “houses” beneath large maple trees is one thing. The grim fact is that Charles Ingalls deeply believed in manifest destiny and to that end dragged his family around the country, plunging them into hunger and poverty again and again, because he believed in his divine right as a white man to just displace anyone who happened to be living in the space he wanted to live in. Is this the message we need in 2025? I’m going to go ahead and say no.

I Have No Answer To This Question

Speaking of moving around, Elisabeth asked (HI ELISABETH) if you could live in one place outside of Canada for one year, where would you choose to live? Only three months ago I would have enthusiastically answered Maui, which is truly a paradisical place. But now I’m not sure the US is the best place for a Canadian. My husband and I have been planning a spring hiking trip to the Canyonlands, but sadly we have decided to cancel it. I don’t want our tourism dollars going to a government that shows outright hostility towards my country and dismissal about our national sovereignty. It also seems like a bad idea to have my physical body there. The long and the short of it is that I don’t know how I would answer Elisabeth’s question. I don’t have a backup answer to this hypothetical question, I guess another tropical island paradise that I have yet to visit. Or, Maui in (hopefully) four years.

Yoga Club Update

I just had to do some deep breathing after typing the above, which reminded me: how are we doing with Yoga Club? I hope everyone is making time to do one or more postures per day, and if that hasn’t happened, I hope that everyone is practicing loving-kindness towards themselves. There is a new three minute video on my humble little YouTube channel, demonstrating cat-cow in my kitchen; as an added bonus, Rex is featured! In all seriousness, cat-cow is a fantastic movement for spinal mobility, and I hope you give it a try.

Weekly Reading

Flowers in the Attic. Hands up if you also read this at age 12, or some other inappropriate age, hiding it from your mother! Did we all slip it in between the covers of our Trapper Keepers? This was such a wild reread. It has it all: incest, Oedipal complex, daddy issues, stepdaddy issues, child neglect, child abuse, child death, locking your own children in an attic in order to inherit millions of dollars from your weirdly religious father who disowns you for marrying your half-uncle. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to argue with the “maybe don’t marry/ fuck your relatives” part of the book. Not only does it have the most bizarre and over-the-top plot, it also is terribly written. I don’t know what’s worse, the over-explanation of every single detail, the excessively over-written descriptions of every scene, or the dialogue. The dialogue! It’s honestly the worst. I guess the key demographic – Gen X preteens – benefited from the multitude of explanatory details, being preteens, but wow, is this bad. It’s so bad it’s kind of good? I was entertained, if disturbed all over again. I mean, there is a kind-of-sibling-rape, there is the poisoning of children via arsenic powdered doughnuts, and there is the terrifying scene where the grandmother drugs her granddaughter and then pours tar all over her hair. Just writing that out makes me feel like I was in a fever dream while I read it.

Here One Moment. If you knew exactly when and how you were going to die, would you live your life differently? How much of life is pre-determined, and to what extent are we in charge of our own destinies? Those are just some of the questions raised by this novel about the travellers on a very delayed flight from Tasmania to Sydney; an old lady in an apparent fugue state suddenly stands up and goes through the entire flight cabin, telling each person how she expects them to die and at what age. Soon after, people do start to die in exactly that way. This was a really thought-provoking book for me, although I will honestly say that the backstory of the apparently clairvoyant old lady was pretty tedious, and it takes up about half the book. It all ties together very cleverly in classic Moriarty fashion; all in all I enjoyed it, with that one caveat. For those of us math-and-statistics nerds, there is a lot of really interesting discussion on probability, including a paragraph about the birthday paradox. I remember being in a lecture hall with two hundred other students, while my statistics professor had everyone stand up when their birthday was called, and sure enough, someone in that room shared my birthday. There is a very high probability that two people will have the same birthday when there are seventy-five people in a room, which I think is a very cool fact. Anyway, this is well worth the read, despite the boring backstory.

Well, will you look at that. I started this post thinking I have nothing to write about this week and here we are, 1700 words later. And it all started with Keanu Reeves! Thanks for reading, friends, and keep on practicing that loving-kindness! xo

The Very Next Day, You Gave It Away

Posted on by

In a very uncharacteristic move, last week I angrily unfollowed a Facebook account after a highly unsatisfactory and, for me, infuriating exchange. It is my general policy to not comment on anything I disagree with; rather, I merely scroll past or mute. It takes a lot for me to become upset enough to unfollow a page. This is not to say I have never done so – I certainly have – but it’s a rare occurrence.

Also last week I learned that some people have very strong negative feelings toward LED Christmas lights (HI SWISTLE, HI ENGIE). I do not share those feelings, and I don’t not share those feelings. I’m neutral on the topic, I suppose, although all of our lights are LED, so that would lead a person to believe that I am highly in favour. I just like lights, and as long as my husband, who is the purchaser of all things light-related, has our display up before December, I am happy.

But I think it’s important to able to have feelings about holiday-related things, or anything, really, and I acknowledge and support my friends in such discussions. If a person doesn’t like LED lights, then they should be able to have non-LED lights and enjoy them, I say, my eclectically vibrant lawn display notwithstanding. I support my non-LED friends in their endeavours, even if I only realized that this was an issue six days ago. I don’t share those same feelings, but I am HERE for you, friends.

I’ll tell you what I do have feelings about, and that is the song Last Christmas. I love that song. I love it in all its iterations, even the really weird ones that involve harmonicas and steel drums. I have an entire playlist dedicated to the original version and all its many covers. I love it unapologetically, and I am not ashamed to say I get hurt feelings every year, every single year, when the inevitable post about Whamaggedon, which involves gleefully AVOIDING any exposure to Last Christmas, comes to pass.

Listen. We all like what we like, we as a human race are not homogenous and we can enjoy different genres of music. I get it. I get it that what is a joyfully festive bop to me, what makes me sing and dance and feel like the Grinch after his heart grew three times and broke the little measurement box, is a song that is disliked by others. That’s fine! We like what we like. But what I’m saying is that just because I think that Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime is the worst holiday song ever written, that doesn’t mean I’m going to make up a game about it and post it all over the internet. Yes, the opening bars make my shoulders go up to my ears with tension and I wish I could rip off my own ears when I hear them, but I am not actively making fun of people who like it.

This leads to, of course, my angry unfollow. I know better, of course, than to engage in any kind of polarizing discourse on Facebook, but I found myself typing like Kermit the Frog, wondering if people hate joy and professing my love for Last Christmas. And the response to me, of course, was to lighten up, it’s just a fun little game.

And I should. I should lighten up. It is just a fun little game, it’s not a personal slight on my character, even if it does make me feel strangely bad about myself, like I’m some kind of Philistine kicking up her heels singing in the grocery store aisles. I know, I really do, that it is not rational, and has literally nothing to do with me; the people playing this game are not out to inflict pain on my emotional state. And yet. Feelings are feelings: some people feel strongly about lights, some people feel strongly about artificial Christmas trees, some people feel strongly about matching festive pajama sets, and I feel strongly about Last Christmas.

In my recent Ask Me Anything (I’m still accepting questions!) Suzanne asked: Outside of Grocery Carts Should Be Returned to Their Corrals, are there any hills you would die on? (HI SUZANNE, thank you for seeing me). There are a few, but one of them is that you shouldn’t yuck someone’s yum, including holiday music. To be honest, this is something I practice daily, and I struggle with sometimes, because I live in a house with people I love who eat meat.

Relatedly, Bijoux asked (HI BIJOUX): Is there any meat you miss? and the very simple answer to that is no. I absolutely don’t, and in fact, the more years that go by, the weirder and more repellent I find the whole concept. However, the men I love all love meat, and so I remind myself every day not to yuck their yums. It’s hard, and I don’t always succeed, particularly at this time of year when photos of turkeys in various stages of cooking abound, but I try.

Everyone is walking their own path, and I would explode with incandescent rage if anyone told me what and how to eat, and so I support them in their dietary choices, even if I disagree with them. And the fact of the matter is that every single one of us living on this planet impacts said planet in some way. I don’t eat our furry, feathered, finned friends, but I do eat grains and fruits and vegetables, and all those crops crowd out animal habitats and thus indirectly impact those innocent beings.

Of course, we all have value and bring positive impacts to the world, every last one of us, but the truth is that just existing negatively affects our environment, and, therefore, its animal inhabitants. No matter how environmentally conscious we may be, collectively we are damaging our Mother Earth. This is just a grim fact, and there is literally no solution except not to exist or, as in the movie I saw in the Sphere in Las Vegas, to be shipped off the planet via spaceship to a whole new planet which is just waiting for humans to fuck it up.

Let’s not do this. We are all just doing our best, hopefully, and my best includes not eating meat, but by no means does that make me, or any other plant-based person, morally superior.

But sometimes it’s hard to remember not to yuck someone’s yum. Did I mention turkey photos?

This brings me to another hill I will die on and that is that there are many sides to any story, and that people contain multitudes. I am always unpleasantly surprised to discover that a person whom I esteem as intelligent and broad-minded can only see people and situations in black and white and cannot see any other point of view other than the one they’ve entrenched themselves in. They cannot see why people might make decisions a certain way, or why people are the way they are.

Which brings me back to Last Christmas. Perhaps I am being close-minded about those people boasting about going all the way until the 24th without once listening to the happiest song on my holiday playlist. If I, a strident Bring Back Your Cart person can recognize that there are extreme extenuating circumstances in which that is occasionally not possible, surely I can cultivate a feeling of compassion and understanding for these people. Perhaps they had a romantic encounter one Christmas, and the next day that encounter was over, forever. Perhaps that romantic encounter was of enormous importance to them and yet, the following year, the other party failed entirely to even recognize them, indicating that the encounter was of minimal importance. Perhaps their heart had been, devastatingly, broken, and the only way they have found to heal this heartbreak was to search for community, for someone special, for someone else who shared such experiences. Perhaps this community all must avoid anything, but particularly a musical masterpiece, that reminds them of this incredibly painful period of their lives. Perhaps that is what Whamaggedon is all about, perhaps it is a community of people who do not want to be reminded of their hearts being given away, they are, we might say, once bitten and twice shy, and must keep themselves from such remembrances that are sparked via festive music.

Or perhaps they really are taking aim at me personally. Who can say.

Weekly Reading

The Girls From Corona Del Mar. You know the kind of book that you just sink into and then feel incredibly resentful about having to do anything that is NOT reading the book? That’s what this book was to me. What an incredible story of lifelong friends and their journeys. One of my least-favourite things in reading is when an author wants to highlight a social or political issue and is completely heavy-handed with it – but this book is the opposite of that. It showcases so many social and political issues in a way that is incredibly thoughtful and haunting. This book shows that we can’t ever really know a person totally, even with the deepest friendship, and that everyone is on their own journey. Now, for the funny part: one of the character’s mothers collects gnomes, so many gnomes, and is eventually beaten almost to death with one. I hope this doesn’t happen to me. This leads me into lots of content warnings for violence, death, death of a DOG, suicidal ideation, ideation about so-called mercy killing, the ethics around pregnancy, medical incompetence, child neglect, abuse, massive drug use, and the aforementioned gnome beating. That’s a lot of content warnings and normally that would make me steer clear, but not with this book. Despite all that, it’s such a beautiful and compelling read about friends, family, love, and moving through life as a terribly damaged person.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. I am kind of neutral about Anna Quindlen’s fiction; I neither love it nor dislike it. Someone (who was it? was it you?) told me about this memoir, which is in the form of essays, something I genuinely enjoy. And there are many lovely, thoughtful essays in here about aging and mothering adult children, and life in general. Some of it was kind of dated (there is a whole section on politics that made me kind of sad and also like “just wait, Anna”) and she refers to “our generation” a lot, and “our generation” refers to baby boomers. I mean, she’s exactly my mom’s age, but I still think there was a lot that is resonant for women my age. It was interesting as her generation WAS the generation of women who were encouraged to Have It All, and it was fascinating to read about her experiences with Having It All. It’s really a memoir of life after fifty, and while some of it was truly wonderful to read – she has SUCH a talent with words – I’m still kind of neutral. I do love the title, though.

We are coming into the Holiday Home Stretch, friends! I hope things aren’t too stressful where you are. I have some work to finish this week and then I’m hoping to relax by the tree with some good books and yummy things. That sounds pretty good right about now. How about you? Tell me everything. xo

Five For Friday: The 2024 Five Star Edition

Posted on by

Five Star Books. I suffer terribly from both recency bias and an inability to remember when, exactly, events occur, and between those two things and the volume of books I read every year, I rarely can answer what were your favourite reads this year without referring to a detailed spreadsheet. For example, before I wrote this I would have said the absolute BEST books I read this year were Long Island Compromise and Margo’s Got Money Troubles, both of which I read in November, and the soon-to-be-reviewed The Girls From Corona Del Mar, which I read this week. But I had so many other five-star reads this year: Tom Lake, Games and Rituals, The Rachel Incident, Commonwealth, My Last Innocent Year, The Whispers, Happiness Falls, Sandwich, The Menopause Manifesto, Peacocks of Instagram, Leaving, Come and Get It, Summer Romance, A History of Burning. I realize that it’s only December 13 (hey, it’s Friday the 13th!) and there could still be some five-stars coming my way, but last year I wrote a similar post on December 8 and then only had one: How To Love The World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. It gets a mention here because I missed out on it last year.

Five Star Re-Reads. I love re-reading old favourites, some of which have been read many times before. Sometimes I pick up these books because I don’t have any library books on the docket, sometimes I pick them up because I just read a string of bad library books and need a literary palate cleanser, and sometimes I just want the comfort of knowing I’m reading something that is going to be great. My five-star re-reads this year were Cat’s Eye, The Friend, Open Secrets, Early Morning Riser, Diary of a Provincial Lady, Amy and Isabelle, and Too Much Happiness.

Five Star Music. It is so exciting when Spotify Wrapped comes out; I love to see what I’ve listened to over the year, and to hear what other people have been musically obsessed with. My top artist has been the same for a few years: Aretha Franklin. I am, apparently, in the top 0.1% of listeners who also think that Aretha is the Queen. I wasn’t surprised to see that, and I wasn’t surprised that Whitney Houston was in the number two spot – also a queen, but with a lower-case q and with sadness about the disease of addiction – and that Alicia Keys and TLC were in the number three and four spots. Queens, all of them. I was, however, a bit surprised by my number five.

One of these things is not like the others! Well, I guess he was the King, and that goes with my musical royalty theme.

As for the top songs, well, my list was a surprise.

I would like to note that Dog and Butterfly moved from number one in 2023, and that I am in the top 0.01% of global listeners when it came to Linda Ronstadt’s Ooh Baby Baby. Either no one else plays that song, or I play it a lot, or both.

Five Star Podcasts. I subscribe to many, many podcasts, and I enjoy them all for different reasons. However, I would like to talk about the ones that I get extremely excited about, and desperately want to listen to immediately when new episodes air. The first is Were You Raised By Wolves, an etiquette podcast that brings nothing but delight and joy to my day. You may think that modern etiquette is a pretty dull theme for a podcast, and you would be in concert with my husband and sons, who think that my listening habits border on the insane. But it’s honestly so much fun, and the hosts have wonderful chemistry. I always learn something new and interesting, like it’s bad etiquette to pass the salt without the pepper. Who knew?

The second is Bad On Paper, a podcast about reading and writing. The hosts are in their thirties, and also have wildly different reading tastes from me. This was made evident when, on the rabid recommendation of one of the hosts, I read The Idea Of You, which was possibly one of the worst books I have ever consumed. But I do love listening to them. They do episodes on Obscure Erotica around Valentine’s Day, which is how I ended up reading Unhinged and Squeak, two absolutely insane books, one about a woman having sex with a sentient door, and the other involving balloon animals. They just released a Holiday Obscure Erotica episode, and I’m not saying I’m going to read Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. But I’m not NOT saying that, either.

I also love listening to The Girls Next Door, which I think I heard about from Stephany (HI STEPHANY). Truthfully, I tried to listen to them about a year ago and I turned them off in irritation. I just could not! I think that Stephany eventually wore me down with her enthusiasm. On her recommendation, I downloaded a very specific episode which I cannot for the life of me remember, earlier this year, and I was hooked from that moment on. It’s just a lovely little podcast full of friendship and fun; they just released an “80s Kid Christmas” episode and as someone born in 1975, I was here for that kind of nostalgia.

Do you like food? Do you like cooking? Do you like the general demeanor and energy level of the SNL skit Shweddy Balls? Then you’ll love Cookbook Club, where they soothingly discuss recipes they make from a specific cookbook, a different one every episode, alternated with cooking topics. If you ever want to hear a debate about whether white sprinkles belong in rainbow sprinkles, and if not, how to make your own custom rainbow sprinkle mix, then this is the podcast for you!

I prefer to listen to smaller, independent podcasts, but I need to tell you about a big exception: Heather McMahon’s Absolutely Not podcast. I have had to stop walking to bend over, put my hands on my knees, and make donkey-like wheezing sounds from laughing so much while Rex looks at me with concern. Possibly I shouldn’t listen to her on our walks.

Five Star Travel. If 2023 was the year of upheaval and change, 2024 has been the year for travel. In January we went to Mexico, in March to Las Vegas. In April and May we were in Ontario and Quebec, only to come home, turn around, and road trip to see my parents in Alberta. In August I went on a road trip with my parents from their place to southeast Saskatchewan for a family reunion, while my husband and older son were on their own road trip to Tuktoyaktuk, and we went for another road trip to Alberta in October for my dad’s 75th birthday. After that, we spent three weeks in Italy! All of our trips were wonderful in different ways, and I swear it’s not recency bias, but Italy was a very special trip of a lifetime.

The world is so big and interesting, there are so many places to go, there are so many books to read and things to listen to. I love hearing what other people also love, whether it be books or music or podcasts or travel. So let me know, my five-star friends, what you’ve loved this year. Tell me everything. xo

One Day In Your Life…

Posted on by

Aficionados of obscure Canadian bands from 1988 will certainly be singing along to that title: …shouldn’t be a problem. One day in your life, shouldn’t cause you pain. Because it’s one day that you might never be around here, and I’ll never ever see you again.

Well. That got a little dark for a minute.

My favourite day of the week is Friday, or, as I like to say to my sons’ extreme consternation, Fri-YAY. My older son says Mom in that certain way that our offspring have to say that we are unbelievably lame creatures, us mothers, whereas my younger son merely closes his eyes to indicate the psychic pain I cause him for using a term like Fri-YAY.

But it is a Fri-YAY to me, I save special treats for that day and I minimize jobs and chores, and here’s how last Friday, the final Friday of November 2024, went down.

3:56 am. I wake up and think about things until the clock strikes four, and then I get out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, where I start that pot of ambition. I drink two glasses of water, perform my morning ablutions, and get dressed in the clothes I have set out in the main floor bathroom the night before. I turn on the Christmas tree and get Rex out of his crate, which is a true highlight of my day, since he behaves as if it’s been years since we’ve seen each other. He’s like the Mary Oliver poem about starting the day in happiness come to life.

Friday is a great day in Rex’s life, because it’s Garbage Day. I grab my flashlight and coat and we go to the shed where the bin is locked up away from bears. As I drag it up to the road, he runs back and forth excitedly. After that, we go inside where I fill his food and water bowls, fill my own coffee cup, and start my laptop. This is my designated blog reading time, so if you’ve ever had an incoherent comment from me, probably the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.

5:21 am. Yoga time! I read a poem first and then meditate on it while I practice.

This is followed by a Peloton ride.

7:15 am. The sun will be coming up in 15 minutes, which is perfect timing as I don’t like walking in the dark. I rehydrate and change my clothes, put on mascara and tinted lip balm, and we are ready to go! For a change I decide to hike up Knox Mountain. There’s no snow at our house but there is a bit on the mountain, and that adds many, many minutes to our walk, as Rex eats, rolls in, and frolics through the scant snow.

9:31 am. We finally get home and I am ready for breakfast. I make a smoothie, tidy up the kitchen, and decide that I cannot abide the state of the floors – side eyeing Rex – and so I give the main floor a quick vacuum and wash.

10:20 am. I shower and scrub out my shower – I do this while my hair mask is absorbing, hot housekeeping tip – and then moisturize, apply makeup, and get dressed. I practice my Spanish to let my hair dry a little before taking the blow dryer to it. I’m on a 1006 day streak!

11:43 am. I don’t usually write on Fridays, but I’m on a self-imposed deadline to finish my second draft before January, which is when my Revise and Edit course begins. I set my mental timer for twenty minutes, and after that I treat myself to reading a couple more blogs.

As Laura and Suzanne know, once the glasses are on, it’s Business Time. (HI LAURA HI SUZANNE). Does anyone remember the Flight of the Conchordes? When you get down to just your socks, it’s Business Time. Anyway, it’s not THAT kind of business.

12:21 pm. Lunchtime! Yesterday I had made a vanilla ice cream mixture and so I put that in the ice cream maker to churn while I eat lunch. I add chopped up Oreos and consider myself a contender for Mom of the Year. I read a chapter of my current book, which is Real Americans.

1:30 pm. I have a pedicure appointment at 2, but I need to stop at the library first. I do this and later discover after I left another of my holds came in. I had put all my holds on pause when we went to Italy, and I currently have eight library books at home, plus three at the library, plus TWO MORE in transit. Oops. I have a lovely pedicure, and come home to see my husband and son in the yard putting up the outdoor Christmas decorations. Rex is out with them too and he’s pretty excited to see me. He comes inside with me where I brush my teeth, call my mother, and then come back out to be a consultant for the decorations. Should the walrus and the penguin be together? Where does the llama go? Should the snowman go under the overhead vines as a welcoming committee?

3:59 pm. This is it. This is the day where the sun sets before 4:00. I’m mainlining Vitamin D at this point. We go back inside and have Cocktail Hour: first, a chilled shot of Limoncello to sip, reminding us of Italy, and then a glass of Chianti.

5:00 pm. A knock on the door, and it’s a delivery from UPS. My dear, sweet friend Elise has sent me a package and it’s absolutely incredible. Does she know me or what?

5:30 pm. It’s time to make dinner, and it’s my favourite, the one I could eat on repeat indefinitely: Greek salad with hummus and pita. What better day to have my favourite dinner? Since I (always) make dinner, the guys clean up the kitchen.

7:00 pm. While they are cleaning up, I change into my pajamas and do my dental and skincare routines. Then the three of us watch an episode of NYPD Blue. It is a ROUGH one. If you know, you know. After that we are all kind of silent, and I read a few more chapters of my book while my husband watches hockey and my son disappears.

8:47 pm. Bedtime! I’m calling it a day. A Fri-YAY.

Weekly Reading

To The Women. I have been reading these poems in the morning before yoga and let me tell you, this uplifting collection could not be better timed! has words of wisdom about body image, aging, and loving yourself more and more as time goes on. For those of us side-eyeing our wardrobe as it relates to our newfound perimenopausal tummy, this is a really inspirational look at aging.

The God of the Woods. About halfway through this mystery-thriller about a young girl who goes missing from summer camp is this quote: “She read Walden out of sheer boredome and found herself annoyed by Thoreau: his self-regard, his tone of superiority, the way he doled out advice so obvious as to be insulting. Here was a rich person playing, thought Louise. There were poor people far more resourceful and self-sufficient than he was; they just had the grace and self-awareness not to brag about it.” HELLO. Seldom have I felt so seen. I don’t think I’ve ever had my feelings about Thoreau encapsulated so well, so that boosted the book for me right there. But more interestingly, that paragraph basically sums up the whole book. It’s a foreshadowing and a thematic statement all in one and I AM HERE FOR IT. I love when authors leave little hints like that. Anyway, this is not my usual genre, but I picked it up because it’s so buzzy right now. And even though I don’t love mystery-thrillers, I really liked this, I found it a nice twisty entertaining read that kept me guessing until the end. Damn if I don’t feel bonded with Liz Moore right now, too. Living deliberately my ass.

Real Americans. This was an interesting reading experience, a book about three generations of Chinese-Americans that deals with wealth, class, assimilation, fitting into society, and, wildly, the ethics of genetic modification. It’s also about family and making the best choices given the circumstances. I really loved the first third of the book and then I liked it a bit less as it went on. As literature, it’s quite a remarkable accomplishment, spanning decades and generations and weaving historical events into everyday life. There are some interesting questions raised: what role does fate play in our lives, what does it mean to be part of a family, is wealth incompatible with living an ethical life? It’s a thought-provoking and very well written book.

Congrats to all my friends who participated in NaBloPoMo! I saw quite a few “day in the life” posts and was inspired to do my own – waiting until December, of course! I’m always a bit reticent to do these posts – is anyone really interested in the minutia of my life? – and then I realize that I myself am fascinated by them, so why not. Next up: an AMA! Happy December, friends. xo