Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

Brass Monkey, that funky monkey

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All high schools in the city, it seems, have a reputation or something that they are known for. Some schools are known for their excellence in fine and performing arts, some schools have fabulous vocational programs, some schools excel at sports. The nearby Catholic high school, for example, has won the city championships in football pretty much every year since its inception. Our high school has a reputation for academia, and the demographics in the school reflect that.

So it was with interest that I attended Math 10 Parent Info Night on Tuesday. We are a very mathematically-inclined family, and even though I couldn’t imagine what the info night would cover – I already had the course outline, complete with weighting for each unit, test schedule, and information about notes-for-purchase and the required graphing calculator – I wasn’t going to miss it.

It turns out that, hilariously, in addition to a discussion about different streams of math and the various avenues available for academic assistance, the math department felt the need to give a somewhat prolonged lecture with an underlying message to parents to just calm the fuck down. It was priceless.

I consider myself to be, in many ways, a very strict parent. I have high expectations for my children in terms of academic performance, work ethic, and general behaviour, but in that crowd, I looked like a lax, overly permissive hippie.

My son’s math teacher got up to speak; he is an older, very formal gentleman who is of Ethiopian descent. He began with a very long story about how he is actually a physicist, he loves teaching high school math but his first major was physics. This went on for some time, causing me to tilt my head and think where is he going with this. Eventually he revealed that his daughter, in high school, was struggling in physics. More than struggling, she was suffering. And so, after some discussion with the teacher, he withdrew her from physics. In the car on the way home she sighed with relief and said “I didn’t think you would let me drop physics.”

At this point the teacher appealed to the parents, saying that he did not know WHY she would think that she had to take physics, just because HE was a physicist. That was HIS dream, not hers. I half expected him to start reciting Your children are not your children, but instead he stated that, as parents, we may have dreams of our children being engineers or doctors or what have you, but there are many, many different paths to success in the world.

He concluded by saying, with much pride, that his daughter is now a high school band teacher. I smiled, and looked around at my fellow parents, expecting a certain smiling reaction to a man who has revealed with pride and joy that his daughter chose her own path, one that has led to success.

The room was silent. All the parents were leaning back in their chairs with their arms crossed, and a look of bemusement mixed with horror on their faces.

Well.

After that the presentation opened up to a Q and A session, which was equally ridiculous. One mother kept pressing to see what SPECIFIC grades a university engineering program required for entrance, a question literally impossible to answer. A father asked which math stream was appropriate for a student who has career aspirations of being an astronaut. Sir, if your child is going to obtain a PhD in Astrophysics, probably that child should pursue the more RIGOROUS math stream?

At that point I booted it out of there, and when I got home and relayed the story my son pointed out that I did, indeed, look a little bit like a hippie with my yoga pants and mala, which seemed a bit aggressive on his part. It’s not like I was wearing Birkenstocks or sporting leg and armpit hair.

I do very much value academics, but I am also very happy that my son is taking drama this semester. I played Amanda Wingfield in our high school production of The Glass Menagerie, and I can still do a mean Southern accent. I also played – bizarrely – Shelly in Grade 11 when our school did Buried Child, and if you do not know this play, I suggest you google it and sit in awe that a high school actually put on such a thing.

Anyway, the current unit in my son’s drama class is lip-synching, and he and a friend have chosen Brass Monkey as their assignment.

As a slight aside, during the week the boys work out in the “dungeon” after school; they alternate days and if I didn’t already know their workout schedule I would be able to ascertain it based solely on the playlist blasting from the basement. My younger son’s playlist is almost entirely Guns and Roses, interspersed with some dreadful death metal and – strangely enough – Elton John. There’s something weirdly unsettling about having Tiny Dancer follow Mr. Brownstone. My older son’s playlist is similar, except that it is Van Halen with Led Zeppelin, with the occasional Michael Jackson tune.

I am not judging, here, my own workout playlist is similarly eclectic, with everything from Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock to the Pointer Sisters to Jimi Hendrix to Eminem.

Because of the impending Brass Monkey performance, my son has been working out to the Beastie Boys exclusively this past week, and let me tell you this: if I thought having Honky Cat in my head for six days straight was bad, it was NOTHING compared to Brass Monkey. Honky Cat, at least, has lyrics that I know and are varied. Now I just keep mentally yelling Brass Monkey, that funky monkey, Brass Monkey junkie…over and over in my head.

Yesterday my son was working out and I was inspired. I ran down the stairs and screamed at him “WHAT’S THAT NOISE?”

He stared at me for a moment – I’m not a screamer, especially not for no apparent reason – and then it dawned on him. “Mom, you’re just jealous, IT’S THE BEASTIE BOYS!”

It was as proud a moment as could be. I felt like his math teacher, beaming with pride and joy. I also felt like this:

Well, this Cool Mom is off to do some cardio and maybe I’ll add the Beastie Boys to my playlist today. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! xo

Maybe they are “regular”

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I am absolutely a morning person, and yet I’ve had a few strange occurrences over the past few days that have caused me to figuratively tilt my head and raise my eyebrows at myself. On Saturday I started the coffee without noticing that the pot was on an angle, and by the time I finished washing my face, brushing my teeth, and feeding the dog there was half a pot of coffee that had spilled out on my countertop. Half a pot of coffee is a lot of coffee on a flat surface; it took me many minutes and many dish clothes to clean the mess up. I had to move all the small appliances and twenty-five bananas out of the pool of coffee and, of course, the angled pot had pressed up onto the filter and so there were grounds all through my coffee maker as well. My coffee maker was in need of a vinegar cleaning anyway – I am not sure if I’ve EVER given it a vinegar cleaning, and I have had this coffee maker since at least 2012 – but still. It was not, I thought, the best way to start a new month.

Then, this morning I went to yoga practice with my pants inside out. I didn’t even notice until I was two-thirds of the way through; if they were black I’m sure I would have never noticed, but they were blue, with a black gusset, and so it was fairly obvious.

Despite these two occurrences, February seems to be off to a good start. Saturday my husband and I had a date to The Casbah, where I had the single best meal of my life. I am not exaggerating. It was epic. If you are in Calgary, you really must go. Not only is the food incredible – I’m serious, it was the best meal I have ever consumed – the atmosphere is wonderfully romantic and lovely. I have always wanted to visit Morocco; one day I will and I will eat all the chickpeas and tajines and couscous you can imagine.

Then yesterday, in addition to being a palindrome, Kansas City won the Superbowl, which I was excited about. I also made a delicious dessert that I hadn’t made for a while, strawberry daiquiri pie. It’s the easiest thing in the world: a few days before, put two cans of full-fat coconut milk in the fridge. Scoop out the thick and creamy part to use, whirl it in a food processor with three cups of sliced strawberries (I used thawed frozen ones), two tablespoons of lime juice, and 1/2 cup honey. Pour it into a graham cracker crust (1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs with 1/4 cup melted coconut oil). Freeze, eat with magic shell chocolate (2/3 cup coconut oil melted with 1 cup chocolate, add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon honey).

Most importantly, though, today my son went back to school. Hurrah to the end of exam break, all is back to normal in the Boyhouse.

So February is great so far, and I am happy to report that I am no longer hearing Honky Cat on a loop in my head. I was talking to the boys about this and my younger son pointed out it was excellent that I didn’t have Bennie and the Jets stuck in my head, because no one knows the words to it. I realized with a start that this was true. I don’t know the words to Bennie and the Jets; I would venture to say that no one does*. I would say that the entire population might know “Hey Kids,” followed by a great deal of mumbling, then “She’s got electric boots,” more mumbling that culminates in “B-b-b-bennie and the Jets.” But nothing else.

My son told me he had looked up the lyrics and it was worth doing; if you are interested you should do this because whoa nelly, none of those words a) make sense, and b) sound like anything at all in the song.

Speaking of things that don’t make sense, I had to go to Walmart for a few Walmart-y type things, one of which was Advil. The Pain Relief aisle is the same as the Family Planning aisle – huh, let’s not think too much about this – and there was a man there, talking with one of the employees. The employee – who was, I feel it is important to mention, female – had a box of condoms in her hand and was reading it.

Employee: This says “Extra Large.”

Man: No, no, that’s not what I need. Is there an “Extra SMALL?”

At this point I seriously considered browsing through the KY jellies and multiple personal lubricants just to hear the rest of the exchange. Mostly, though, I was impressed with this man. I mean, who has the confidence to ask for extra small condoms in a normal, non-whispery voice? Who has the confidence to actually go to a physical store to look for extra small condoms, rather than special order them online? May we all hold ourselves in such esteem.

Also? I’m pretty sure they DON’T have extra small condoms. I am pretty sure that the condom companies would never market them that way. It’s probably like in Starbucks, where a small is a Tall.

Well, there’s no good way to segue into this, but look at what I saw in the Co-Op the other day:

CANNED HAGGIS. Who knew there was such a thing? Not me, that’s for sure. As if haggis itself isn’t gross enough – “I think all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare,” Mike Myers – CANNED haggis? Who would buy this? Let alone who would pay $13.29 for a can of haggis? No Scottish person, that’s for sure. If there is one thing that unites us as a people, it is frugality.

As a note I have never actually eaten haggis, canned or no, and I never will. But I just can’t imagine it being good in any capacity, even if I wasn’t vegetarian. Note the mushy peas next to it. Shudder, shudder, shudder.

I have decided that I WILL challenge myself to wear a different outfit every day in February. Let’s see how this goes. Today is cold and snowy and grey, which is a very February kind of day, I think. So why not brighten it up by digging through my closet to come up with different things? If there’s one thing I love, it’s clothes. And Moroccan food. And Elton John.

Here are my first three outfits of the month: date night, my only football-themed top for Superbowl Sunday, and a very typical “teaching day” outfit.

*Technically it is not no one; other than Elton John, my friend’s husband does actually know the words, which is a very excellent party trick in my opinion.

Until I saw your city lights, honey I was blind.

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I tend to avoid bragging about my kids; not that they are not braggable, but because I think it’s bad form. However, this all changes now. I am here to tell you that their knowledge of Elton John lyrics is second only to my own, which is to say, excellent. In point of fact, their knowledge was close to besting mine, as there was some involved discussion whether or not the line was I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife or life. It turns out that we were both right, as the line is “life” in the movie, but “wife” in the OG version, as the kids say.

I realized their lyrical knowledge had skyrocketed from Fine to Astonishing when we watched Rocketman on Saturday night. It was so much fun to watch with them; the three of us singing heartily throughout the movie. I’m not sure if my husband, the lone non-singer, found it quite as charming, but whatever. I can’t wait to watch Bohemian Rhapsody with them: I see a little silhouette-a of a man…

The sole issue from our fun singsong party-of-three is that I have had Honky Cat stuck in my head, on a loop, ever since. If I was to list my top ten Elton John songs, Honky Cat would not make the list. I don’t even think it would be in my top TWENTY. But here I am, nearly a week later, singing snippets of it all the livelong day. Get back, Honky Cat, better get back to the woods…at what point do I declare myself insane? Soon, I think. Living in the city ain’t where it’s at…

While I’m bragging, on Monday two unprecedented things happen. Now, before I go into those things, I will say that my boys are very helpful around the house; they have set chores and those chores are always done, they always are willing – usually cheerfully – to help out with any household/ yard/ snow shoveling task when asked, they keep the house and all the areas they inhabit in the house very tidy and clean. However, and I know every woman out there can relate to this, they often don’t See Things That Need To Be Done The Way I See Those Things, and I could get into a whole thing about Emotional Labour but I will not. Anyway, two things on Monday happened that have made me singing Looks Like We’ve Made It, interspersed with, of course, Honky Cat. I quit those days and my redneck ways… 

Monday morning I was writing at my desk and I could hear the clanking of dishes and silverware from the kitchen (YES IT IS WEEK THREE OF EXAM BREAK, LET US NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN). When I finished what I was doing, I realized that my older son (EXAM BREAK OMGGGG) had eaten his breakfast, realized that the dishwasher was finished its cycle, UNLOADED THE DISHWASHER and then PUT HIS OWN DISHES INTO IT. Yes, of course my kids always put their dishes in the dishwasher when they are finished with them, they are not barbarians, but to unload the dishwasher without being asked? UNPRECEDENTED.

Later, that very same day, my younger son changed the roll of toilet paper; this is nothing new, the guys always do this, it is unremarkable in and of itself. But he took the empty roll out of the bathroom and put it in the recycle bin, rather than leave it on the countertop in the bathroom. Also unprecedented! And just as astonishing!

So I am bragging about my wunderkinds; even if neither of those things ever happen again, well, we will always have Paris, so to speak.

Thank you all for your comments regarding gel pedicures; especial thank-you goes out to Samantha (HI SAMANTHA) for her comment about gel polish being bad for the nails. Long time readers will remember the time I got a manicure when I was stuck at the car dealership for many, many hours. That was a gel manicure and a few weeks after getting it, the polish peeled off, leaving my nails thin and weak. It took a long time for my nails to get back to normal; thank you, Samantha, for reminding me of this. I ended up cancelling my pedicure; I considered taking in my own polish, but that felt weird and overly controlling. I also considered getting no polish, but, to be honest, my feet are not, as my friend Taryn (HI TARYN) says, “manky,” so it felt like a waste of money just to get them soaked and scrubbed, which I can do at home. I figure I can Support Local Business in other ways. For example, waxing. A hirsute girl such as myself can well keep a business going.

Non-manky but Reynaud’s purple.

Oooh, maybe the next Favourite Things will be all about foot products. Sorry to keep you all on the edge of your seat! But you will have to wait.

I cannot believe tomorrow is February, this is the fastest moving January in all history, or at least in all of MY history. There are a few really good things I want to tell you about, to round the month off.

Sweater Discovery

I was rearranging the top shelf of my closet, where I keep things my gym sweatshirts and lesser-worn but much-loved items such as sweater dresses. Behold, underneath my pile of sweater dresses was this sweater:

It has pockets!

This is a significant discovery – the sweater, not the pockets – not only because I’ve had this sweater for many years and love it, but I completely forgot about its existence. When did I last wear it? Who knows! I LITERALLY forgot that I owned it. It was like finding something brand-new, although this sweater is the opposite of brand-new. What an exciting discovery. The very fact that I found something that a) I haven’t worn in years, and b) I love, made me think, once again, that my Sweater Situation is Ample.

Maybe I’ll do a February Challenge! Maybe I’ll try to wear a different outfit for each day in February, sweater-wise, at least. February is a short month, I should be able to do that. Obviously there will be some repeats in the form of jeans or black yoga pants – I have a number of those, too, but not enough to get me through the month without re-wearing.

Cilantro

I gave my little herb garden a break for a month or so, when I discovered fruit flies (fruit flies! In November!) that were infesting my cilantro. Or maybe they were aphids? I don’t know, but I did not want to eat infested cilantro. I don’t think that’s vegetarian. Also, gross. As you know, I cannot – CANNOT – go back to grocery store cilantro, so I have been doing without. I decided all was fine now, bug wise, so I planted some cilantro seeds, but it was just before the extreme cold snap. Even with the grow lights, it was too cold for the seeds to really sprout. Well, happily they are sprouted now and I am only a couple of weeks away from harvest. I can’t wait! The pleasure will be all the greater for the waiting, as old-timey suitors might have said about a reticent lady friend who finally agreed to an engagement.

Winter Fashion

It’s been so mild that on three occasions in the past ten days, I’ve worn my cute, stylish, flattering, lightweight winter coat. Don’t worry! I haven’t put away my sleeping-bag-with-sleeves, and in fact, I’m wearing it more often than not, but I have felt like a Winter Fashion Plate on those three occasions. I have paired my coat with a big blanket scarf and my tall, lace-up-but-with-a-zipper-on-the-side boots, and have felt like a Very Fancy Lady, one who lives in a much less harsh climate, who can look forward to “winter.” Or maybe one of those high class ladies down in New Orleans…

Photos courtesy of my older son who – have I mentioned this already? – has had NO CLASSES FOR THREE WEEKS THREE WEEKS PEOPLE. Cue up:

It’s like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine…

It’s Friday, people! Let’s drink wine from a bottle of wine (or whiskey, I won’t judge) and enjoy the weekend. xo

And why WOULDN’T we have a Christmas walrus?

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I was having a bit of a Monday-ish Monday; my older son needed to be at school for his sports med volunteering at 6:30 in the morning, so I had an abbreviated yoga practice and rushed home. We zipped over to the school, and half an hour later I got a text from him saying that it had been cancelled. This is the second time sports med volunteering had been cancelled with zero notice; the time it was cancelled after school was one thing, but this felt especially offensive. Then, my younger son realized with some dismay that his magazine rack that he had built for Industrial Arts and had brought home to stain on the weekend was still slightly damp; transporting a large, slightly-damp magazine rack to school without getting wood stain on everything was a bit of a feat. All of this before 7:30 on a Monday morning.

These two occurrences unsettled me more than they should have; I was already feeling a bit out of sorts with the discovery, late Sunday afternoon, that there was a mouse in my kitchen. If there is anything more insidiously disturbing than finding mouse droppings under the kitchen sink, I do not know what it is. What is with the mice problem lately? Longtime readers will remember the time I basically had a nervous breakdown from the previous kitchen mouse experience. How are all these mice getting in here? Why is this happening? I asked my husband, as if our house is constantly overrun by mice, instead of having one other such incident, back in 2013.

In any case, the problem has been resolved. My husband set a trap and not ten minutes later, as I was chopping up vegetables for Buddha Bowls, I heard it go off. Hellllllllppppppp! I screamed, until the boys came running and, shall we say, disposed of things. Another trap sat there untouched for 48 hours, so I was completely unprepared for the sight that greeted me when I reached in to get dishwasher detergent on Tuesday evening.

I started wordlessly screaming in a loud and high-pitched voice, not unlike someone getting ax-murdered in a horror movie. The kids had no idea what was wrong, but seemed to assume that I was having some kind of medical emergency as my older son grabbed my arm and started to escort me to my room, to force me to lie down. The door of the cupboard was still open, the dog was wandering around, and I had to tell them what was wrong but I found I could not form words at all. Language, what is that? All I could do was scream. “Mom, Mom, it’s okay, why don’t you lie down,” my older son said as I responded with a long AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Finally I managed to say disconnected things like “MOUSE” and “HELP” and “KEEP BARKLEY AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.”

This is a long and roundabout way of saying that I was feeling a bit Fragile and Out Of Sorts, when I had a message from my friend Lyn (HI LYN), to go look on my doorstep. YOU GUYS. Look!

Math AND Christmas? Two of my favourite things! This makes up for everything! Festive Nicole has been reinstated! At least until the next mouse incident, which hopefully will be several years away, if ever.

Things have been pretty festive around here, dead mice and optional classes notwithstanding. People have been walking by and photographing our front yard, which looks like this:

I would like to point out the Christmas walrus, which my older son and husband picked up on a trip to Home Depot. The two of them really cannot be trusted to go shopping by themselves, and although a month ago I might have thought Why would anyone need a Christmas walrus? I now see their point. It’s really cute!

Have you guys heard about Whamageddon? It’s a game played on social media in which you actively avoid hearing the song Last Christmas; if you hear it – say, if you are out shopping – then you are OUT. Sudden death. By Last Christmas. This is a phenomenon I do not understand; why would anyone AVOID hearing Last Christmas? If anything, I actively seek it out. I have even downloaded a playlist curated by my friend Peggy (HI PEGGY) that is solely made up of different versions of Last Christmas. Clearly, this game is not for me.

As a matter of fact, I believe that Last Christmas – not the “OG,” as the kids say, but one of the newer versions – was the first Christmas song I heard this season, when I was at Superstore. I found myself singing along as I pushed my giant cart through the Health and Beauty section, wondering why they moved the cotton balls. I am a person who often finds myself singing audibly in public, and not just in a “The Best Way To Spread Christmas Cheer Is By Singing Loud For All To Hear” kind of way. I do this year-round. It’s my contribution to the world, I guess. I have to stop myself from singing out loud when I am at the gym, though, because I feel like loud singing with headphones on is not actually appreciated by the general public. I do this when I’m on my elliptical at home, but when I’m on the treadmill at the gym I have to content myself with merely lip-synching.

I take a Saturday morning spin class, and I feel I must tell you that it is not like other spin classes you may have attended. I guarantee it. The instructor is probably in his sixties, and the average age of the students in that class exceeds my own by at least two decades. It’s inspiring to see older people sweating along to the very eclectic musical selections by the instructor, but what I am really trying to convey is that this is not a youthful group. I have been to spin where the instructor was about nineteen years old, and there were black lights and strobe lights and the “retro old music” was the descriptor for such dance songs that would have been played in the bar, when I myself was nineteen. THIS IS NOT THAT KIND OF CLASS. Anyway, I was in spin and lip-synching/ singing softly under my breath to Holding Out For A Hero, when an older lady in a Tom Baker Cancer Survivor t-shirt, two bikes down, noticed me. She started singing very loudly along, gesturing to me in the universal sign of “pump up the volume.” It honestly made my whole day, the two of us, singing loudly in spin class, as the rest of the group smiled indulgently. The moral of this story is: don’t be afraid to sing out loud. Shine on, you crazy diamond. xo

Happy could have totally made that shot.

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I’m in that First-Week-Of-September-What-Is-With-This-Schedule mode right now, and it’s only Thursday. It’s only Thursday and I’ve had a light week, class-wise, which means that next week, with a full roster of classes should be very interesting. With everyone gone last week, I feel like I didn’t get enough closure on summer. The long weekend was dreadful, weather-wise, with actual thick fog and drizzle and cool temperatures, and so I would like an end-of-summer do-over, please. Is that too much to ask?

As an aside, the guys had The Greatest Time camping in the Yukon and Alaska, and my husband has gone so far as to describe to me “how much better campgrounds are now” which feels like he’s preparing to pop the question: will I go on a northern camping trip with him? There are showers and everything! You get to meet so many people! he said in a coaxing way and well. This is a thing that currently feels undesirable but life, as we say, is unpredictable. Who knows what the future may hold? Maybe in our golden years I will happily acquiesce to RV living, although this seems unlikely at this juncture.

The first couple days of school have gone really well; the boys are enjoying their classes so far, which bodes well for the semester. I was reminiscing with a friend about dropping the kids off on their first day of kindergarten. I remember the teacher reading The Kissing Hand to my older son’s class, and then all the children gave their parents (well, it was exclusively moms, as I recall) little pink construction paper hearts to keep for the day. I think I still have that little heart somewhere. My younger son’s kindergarten teacher was almost a parody of a kindergarten teacher, she was so wonderful and lovely with a crinoline-lined dress, long blonde hair, and a speaking voice that could only be described as “soprano.” She gave all the parents (moms) a little paper bag that had some cute things in it to symbolize the kindergarten year, but what those things were has disappeared from my memory. Ah, the kindergarten drop-off. So emotional.

Back then I was involved as involved could be, volunteering for every committee and to help cut pieces of milk cartons for bird houses and baking snacks for class celebrations. Comparatively, my younger son informed me that Meet the Teacher night is next Thursday, but “we don’t have to go.” Oh, thank GOD, I said, because honestly? I’ve done my time, listening to the principal talk about the importance of parental involvement in education and how to check your child’s progress online. I’m fine, thanks, I’ll talk to you at report card time. If then. How the mighty have fallen. And I only have two kids, one grade apart! Imagine how jaded I would be if I was my friend who is now entering her eleventh year at the elementary school with her youngest, with seven years still in front of her. I’m not sure I’d even slow the car down before allowing the kid to jump out.

Perhaps this is nature’s way of preparing me for their eventual flight from the nest?

Every year at Back to School time I get the song from Billy Madison stuck in my head for literally DAYS: Back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool. It probably speaks volumes that my household got into a tense argument about which movie is more realistic: Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore. Usually we argue about which movie is BETTER, but for both questions my answer is Happy Gilmore. It’s just silly to think someone could go through a grade every two weeks, no matter what the stakes! Also that woman would never go out with such a loser, I said, to which my husband replied that no one could ever take a running leap and make that golf shot to win the tournament. Deadlock has been reached and as with any debate, no one’s mind has been opened or changed.

The thing I notice most about Back to School is that we go through much more food. School is hungry work, apparently, and adding that to the Growing Teen Boys thing that I have going on, my grocery needs have skyrocketed. Yesterday I spent hours going to both Costco and Superstore, and I can tell you that doing that is a very good way to get your steps in. Feel the burn, I thought to myself as I went up and down the stairs myriad times to put everything away. Maybe I should market this as a fitness program; it could be the next CrossFit or Legree! And lift! And turn! And push! And now return the cart, you lazy bastard!

That last one just slipped out. I swear. xo

Some of us are really, really sad about Back to School.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “One Is The Loneliest Number” Edition

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I am going to tell you something that will probably make a large percentage of you become very envious: my husband and kids went camping in Alaska, and they have been gone ten days, returning this evening. Ten days, alone. Now I’m going to tell you something that will probably make a large percentage of you very angry with me: I do not, as it turns out, enjoy being alone for that long.

Sure, I’m all for a day or two of solitude, where I can eat Greek salad for dinner and never once turn on the television, particularly to Bloomberg or any kind of sports network, but I have discovered something about myself: I really, really enjoy people around me. What can I say, I’m a people person. This was the longest I’ve been apart from the children; indeed, it’s the longest I’ve been apart from my husband in our twenty-one years of togetherness. So I found myself being a bit lonely and blue, particularly after spending the weekend at my parents’ house; walking into my silent empty house seemed almost too sad to bear. I’m always a bit blue the last week of summer, and this was even worse than when I took the kids to see Inside Out just before the September long weekend, years ago. I was feeling verklempt and then when – SPOILER ALERT – Bing Bong died I cried and cried uncontrollably. It’s like Bing Bong is dying and I’m all alone in my empty nest. 

The thing is – and I’m sorry for all you mamas out there who are just desperate to use the toilet unaccompanied or who want to just sit down for five minutes without someone needing something, I’m sorry, I really am – I do get time to myself every day. I do get time where no one needs anything and not one person has tried to accompany me to the toilet for many, many years. And so this felt a bit like a long stretch of time where I realized that the days are very long indeed when one is alone.

However, I’m not complaining, not really, because the boys had a great time with their dad, Making Memories, as my mother-in-law says often. Many Memories Were Made, and meanwhile I scheduled in something fun every day, so I got to Make My Own Memories.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “One Is The Loneliest Number” Edition

Greek Salad and Pita

It was tempting to slide back into my single-girl eating days and have popcorn for dinner, but instead, I made myself a balanced dinner every night. If you’re going to eat a balanced dinner instead of popcorn, then why not make your very favourite meal? Recalling that I am a person who consumes the same exact thing for lunch every single day, it follows that I do not mind repetition in my evening meal either, which means that over half the nights I had Greek salad with hummus and pita for dinner. My favourite! My family is always happy to eat what I make but I’m pretty sure there would be a mutiny if Greek salad was on the menu for five out of seven days.

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I Heart Books

I’ve always been an avid reader, and I always carve out some time to read every day, but with no one there to talk to or cook for, I read for many hours a day while they were gone. I’m on my sixth book since they left, which means my library pile of last week has been whittled down a lot:

As a brief aside: Class Mom is a very fun, light read, and is especially great for those of us who have been in the trenches, so to speak, when it comes to volunteering at elementary schools. Those days are long behind me but well I remember some of the, shall we say, drama.

Following The Nursing Home Schedule

When one is not immersed in household duties, there are many more hours in the day, which may explain why, on Sunday evening, I stretched and thought it was time to start preparing for bed. It was 6:30. I have always been a morning person and when left to my own devices, this tendency becomes extreme. I ate dinner between 5 and 5:30 every evening, with the exception of Sunday, when I ate at 4:20. I had my pajamas on by 6 or 6:30 most nights, and was sleeping well before 9:00. Then, of course, I found myself wide awake even earlier than normal, when I would listen to some weird overnight talk radio show until it was an acceptable time to get to the yoga studio. I shall be one hundred percent ready for the nursing home, when the time comes. I embrace their early-to-bed ways.

30 Rock

Someone – I think it was Lynn (HI LYNN) – told me that 30 Rock is now on Amazon Prime, and hoo boy, is it ever still an excellent show. I’ve rewatched several episodes and it is still very, very funny. Of course, with any show more than a year old, there are some episodes that, let’s say, would not be created today. For example, Jenna gains weight and it’s a whole thing, and also, Bill Cosby writes an angry letter to Tracy. Tracy says that Cosby interfered with Eddie Murphy’s Oscar win, and it’s an interesting line, as today it is well-known that ye old rapist hated Murphy and tried to sabotage things for him, as he felt Murphy was a stain on the black community. Oh, how the worm has turned.

Extended Outdoor Activity

Having all this extra time on my hands has meant I’ve been able to do a few really fun outdoor things, like last week’s hike to Ha Ling Peak. On the weekend I went for a 22 km bike ride at my parents’ house; usually I ride with the kids and we do more exploring than serious hills and whatnot. I took advantage of my aloneness to go the distance, so to speak.

Speaking of distances, Taryn and I went to Healy Pass yesterday and it ended up being just under 21 kilometres of hiking. It was the best hike I have ever done, so I will leave you with these gorgeous shots:

And how often do you stand in two provinces at the same time?

All in all, an amazing day. Today is also amazing; I’m getting so excited to see the guys that I’ve been singing The Boys Are Back In Town all day. Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone, and may the first week of September go smoothly. xo

Blasts from the past

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Today I learned that there is a place called Babyland General Hospital, and it is a destination for those who really, really love Cabbage Patch Kids; there are tours available and Cabbage Patch Kids up for adoption. Admission, says the website, is free and you can see Mother Cabbage on display beneath the branches of the Magical Crystal Tree. Did you know that each Cabbage Patch Kid is the result of Mother Cabbage being pollinated by “fanciful Bunnybees” and if you happen to visit Babyland General Hospital, you can “witness the birth of a hand-sculpted Cabbage Patch Kid.” Who knew?

Frankly, I am a bit curious about the birthing process as it was my understanding that each Kid was just plucked from the garden, like an actual cabbage. How very wrong I was, apparently. And who knew there was one massive Mother of all Cabbage Patch Kids?

The world is a marvelous place, full of interesting twists and turns. You never know what the day is going to bring and what you might learn.

For example, this week I learned that people still use film in cameras. I know! I was surprised too. I was picking up prints at London Drugs and there was a sweet, friendly girl beside me who had several canisters of film to be developed. She and I started chatting when I expressed my amazement at her old-school method of photography; she told me how excited she was to get the film developed as she had no idea what photos were actually taken. Remember back in the day when you’d take film in to be developed? Half the roll would be no good as the photos would be bad quality, or someone would have their eyes closed or head turned. The other half would be photos you didn’t remember even taking, particularly if it took you a long time to actually take the film in to the developer. “Get the camera!” would be the chorus whenever something noteworthy would happen, but often it came too late and the photo opportunity was gone.

Now we have carefully curated selfies and dramatically filtered photos of our dinner to fill our creative needs, and no one ever says “I wish I had brought a camera!” as our cameras are ever-present in our hands and back pockets.

I don’t miss those days of the film camera, I love being able to capture important moments in an instant, like when my mom and I were sitting on her deck this week and the resident eagle flew overhead and perched in his favourite spot in the yard:

Or, just as interestingly, when I was making myself some lunch and came across this cherry tomato:

Without my phone, important moments like this would be missed, and eventually forgotten. The memory of that sexy tomato would just fade into oblivion.

I was having coffee with a good friend this week (HI NICOLE) and she was impressed that I actually print out photos and put them into albums. I try to do this every few months, but generally it becomes a thrice-yearly labour of not-exactly-love. What a tedious job it is to upload, crop, and adjust the lighting on hundreds of photos, and then arrange them by approximate date and put them into albums. Yet I persist, mostly because one of the things I love to do when I visit my parents is to peek at our old albums; group photos where half the people are unflattered by the camera or the lighting is bad or my dad took the photo and no one at all is even aware he’s taking a picture and so every person is turned the wrong way. Oh, the memories! Each photo that features myself is a fantastic timepiece; take, for example, this photo of me on my thirteenth birthday:

Everything about this is great, but my hair in particular is tremendous. Also of note is my mother’s spoon collection on the wall – remember when people would collect spoons? – along with the serenity prayer in cross-stitch and a “God Bless My Kitchen” plaque. The brown fridge! The decorative fake fruit and flowers in the background! Tacos for dinner! The next photo is photographic proof that I have always enjoyed a pink birthday cake:

And so I print out photos so that my own kids can, in the future, take a trip down memory lane by paging through the photo albums, to remember the chilly day we biked around the lake and discovered that the town has followed in the lead of many places by adding comically large novelty Adirondack chairs for fantastic photo ops. Tiny people in huge chairs! What fun.

Don’t you love when you meet people who are just so in love with their lives that they glow? In talking to the girl with the film, it was revealed that she works for the Alberta parks division, and lives in a little hut in the mountains, far from wifi or cell reception or people or anything at all, in Peter Lougheed Park. “It’s so amazing!” she said to me. “When I come into the city it feels crazy, and I’m so happy to get back to my job! It’s just the greatest!” Shine on, you crazy diamond. It was a brilliant reminder that we are all so very different, and also that I love meeting people so wonderfully happy. I mean, to me it sounds nightmarish, and if I was in a similar situation I would either end up like Jack in The Shining or I would just wither away to nothing. A furry, grey-rooted nothing. There’s a place for everyone in this jigsaw puzzle that is life.

Speaking of The Shining, the boys rented it from the library to watch with their friends one afternoon at our place. As they were planning the viewing, my husband and I talked about how terrifying we found it, to their bemusement. “We’ve seen clips on YouTube and it seems really lame,” was their response. Well! I have to say that they are actually correct; the movie does NOT hold up well. “That wasn’t scary, it was just weird,” their friend said after the credits rolled and the lights were turned back on, adding that it should have really been a psychological thriller instead of a horror film. Was it not?

Well, I’m not going to re-watch it to find out; the few scenes that I did see did seem pretty dated and silly. I put the book on hold at the library though, as I’ve never read it. I will report back! Meanwhile, have a lovely weekend, everyone. xo