Category Archives: Rexing Ball

The Story of Rex

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Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Recently I was looking through last year’s Ask Me Anything when I came across a question from my friend Steph (HI STEPH) that I had yet to address, ten and a half months after the fact. I did not mean to be so tardy in my response, but it turns out that the timing is perfect, as you shall see.

Steph asked: How did Rex come into your life? I remember you saying it was a surprise and I wondered what the story was. Saturday marked four years to the day since Rex came into our lives, but in order to tell that story, I need to first tell the story of Barkley, our beloved brown Labradoodle.

Barkley came to us in 2008 as a 13-week-old puppy, and the boys were 3 and 4 years old, so they all grew up together. The boys didn’t remember a time without Barkley; he was our childhood dog. He was a stuffed Gund toy come to life, fluffy and sweet and, like all Labrador-blends, a bit of a piggy. We all loved him excessively, but as an at-home parent, I spent the most time with him. We walked daily, he curled up by my feet as I wrote or sat with expectant and hopeful eyes while I cooked. He would never allow the boys to be in the back yard on their own, he had to be guarding and watching them at all times.

Throughout Barkley’s life, I vowed I would never have another dog; I loved him so deeply that I could not fathom my heart allowing another dog in. In January 2021, he was diagnosed with cancer in his mouth; I was given the option of giving him chemo, radiation, or removing his jaw. I said How about we just let him live out the rest of his life in peace? I did not think he’d last until the spring, however, he lived another year and a half. I think it’s because we completely stopped disciplining or scolding him in any way, and just fed him a constant stream of treats, since we just wanted him to be happy for whatever time he had left. Now THIS is worth living for, we assume that he thought, as he had his twentieth treat of the day. When he was, to my surprise, still there in the summer of 2021, I never told him to get out of the garden as he trampled through the hostas. They never did recover from that trauma.

I was so happy to have that extra year and a half with him, but as anyone who has had an old, declining pet knows, that year and a half was very difficult. The vet had told me it would be time for Serious Thoughts when Barkley stopped eating, wanting to go for walks, and being happy to get eyedrops, the latter of which was a strange but exciting part of his day. Indeed, until the day he died, he enjoyed all three of those things; in fact, the morning that he died he gobbled down his breakfast the way he had every day of his life. And so I continued with our everyday life, walking him on our slow-boat-to-nowhere route every single day, and every single day we would come home from our walk, with me on the verge of tears.

Barkley was very obviously not well, as anyone sighted could tell you. He had a very large lipoma on his side which did not hurt him or alter his mobility, but it was dramatically noticeable, and something I learned over those eighteen months is that people can be really, really thoughtless and cruel. Every single day we would walk and every single day someone would comment on his appearance. What’s wrong with your dog?, they’d ask, or, inanely, Did you know your dog has a lump on his side? One atrocious man passed us as we slowly ambled up the sidewalk and said sharply WHEN are you going to put that dog down already?

All of which is to say that when he died, on June 30, 2022, I renewed my vow that I would never have another dog. In addition to my feeling that I could never love another dog, I was sure that I could never go through the trauma of the decline again. I spent the summer radiating waves of sadness, walking around with a fuzzy, Barkley-shaped hole in my life and in my heart.

Meanwhile, as I was spending the summer staring at my ruined, dogless hosta garden and avoiding the dog park, my husband was in conversation with one of his colleagues who, for several reasons, was sadly coming to terms with the fact that she was going to need to rehome her Bernedoodle. I did not know about these conversations, which started in July. Barkley died, as I said, June 30. My husband would occasionally mention his colleague’s terrible predicament, and I would shrug and say That’s too bad. He would show me photos of this Bernedoodle, and I barely looked at them. In fact, I said I don’t think he’s cute at all, and asked him to stop showing me photos. As I sadly watched the grass in the back yard become lush and green again, he was secretly telling his colleague to please talk to HIM before anyone else, should she need to rehome the dog.

Eventually, in late September, the colleague had a trip to the emergency room, and her two little boys – who were responsible for the name T-Rex Stegosaurus – said We just want Mommy to be okay and for a family to love Rexie.

Well, I’m not made of stone.

I did have some reservations about bringing a hundred-pound dog into our little bungalow, but we knew his temperament was gentle and sweet, and – this is key – he was well-trained, well-cared-for, and was a year-and-a-half, so past the puppy stage but still young enough to adapt easily to new circumstances. And, as my older son said, We are a dog family, Mom. We need a dog in our lives.

I was not prepared for what happened. I was not prepared for Rex to immediately bond to me and I to him. I was not prepared to have a giant dog so gently and happily devoted to me from day one. I was prepared to take care of him, but I was not prepared to love him instantly and completely.

He came to us on Thanksgiving Monday, 2022, which was appropriate, because I am so thankful and grateful for such a gift, a gift of joy and happiness. I didn’t know how much I needed him.

To quote Jerry Orbach in Dirty Dancing, “When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.”

Weekly Reading

It was a HUGE reading week for me, thanks to some short books and quick, unputdownable reads.

Dolly All The Time. I’m only a little bit late to this party! This was a delight to read. Essentially, it’s Pretty Woman without the sex work, and in a good way. There’s fake dating that – surprise – elicits real feelings and life changes, and it all wraps up in a very satisfying way. More than that, there is a theme of putting yourself FIRST, of taking care of the caretaker, and of speaking up for what you need and want. These are lessons that I think most of us could take to heart. Truly a sweet, funny, and lovely book.

The Reservation. I absolutely LOVE books like this: heavy character development, tiny minutiae of everyday life, an ordinary day that is somehow extraordinary. This book takes place in a restaurant and spans about nine hours; each chapter is a delve into each person who works there. It revolves around mysteriously missing ribeye steaks, and the soon-to-be appearance of John Grisham for dinner. I found this exquisite, with one small quibble: the chapter in which the big reveal happens was very explain-y and the dialogue was quite stilted and did not ring true. I wondered if that chapter was added later in the editing process, and I wished that the reader could have been trusted to be able to come to the conclusions in a much more nuanced way. Otherwise, this was great and I enjoyed it so much.

The Vegetarian. This was a literal fever dream of a book, a story of a woman attempting to escape from oppression and gain autonomy over her body and her life, told – interestingly and importantly – not from her own point of view, but from those around her. It’s a harrowing story and it gave me Yellow Wallpaper vibes. It was very well done and well translated, and very upsetting.

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. This uniquely laid-out book is so beautiful and life-affirming. I spent a great deal of time gasping and then clutching the book to my chest, tears in my eyes. There is a quote it it attributed to Einstein: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. I FEEL SEEN. By Einstein, no less! Anyway, the entire book is just wonderful, made even more moving by the fact – told to me by my friend Elisabeth who recommended it (HI ELISABETH) – that Amy Krouse Rosenthal was dying when she wrote this. My heart. What a loss to the world.

Some Bright Nowhere. I have no idea what to say about this book. I guess….it’s an accurate portrayal of a woman dying of breast cancer, and it is breast cancer awareness month so…that’s good? I suppose the point of this book is Whose Death Is This Anyway? A woman stops her treatment and begins the palliative care journey, and she decides that she doesn’t want her husband of forty years, who has been caring for her through her illness for nine years, to be her caregiver anymore as she dies. Instead, she supplants him with her two best friends. And I will say that this was kind of awful to read. You all know I am no male apologist but wow, I felt so deeply for this husband, and I found the antics of the three women to be just cringey and awful. I go back and forth in my mind – a dying woman should be able to make her own choices, but the people left behind have to live with those choices forever. It’s a very descriptive story of the end of life, and so please be aware of that if you decide to read this book.

Some of you got an unintended preview of this post, due to my under-caffeinated self pressing “publish” as opposed to “save” when I was editing at 4:50 am on Friday. Whoops! If you too would enjoy getting the occasional accidental preview, or just my regular posts delivered to your email, why not subscribe? If you are viewing this on your mobile device, you will have to scroll waayyyyy down to just before the monthly archive menu, but if you are on a laptop or desktop, the subscribe button is in the top right of the homepage. You’ll never miss a post! I hope you all had a very happy Thanksgiving weekend, and I am thankful for all of you for being here. xo

Unwitting Road Race Participation

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Now that it is cooler in the mornings, and I don’t worry about Rex’s paws on hot sidewalks, I have been adding “urban” walks back into my weekly routine. I say “urban” because although the routes follow sidewalks and streets, we pass fields of cows and horses, flower farms, beaches, and the Country Club at which Rex is periodically boarded. Last Sunday we were taking such a route, a loop of 7 kilometres, when we came across a large amount of backed up traffic. I thought it was a construction delay, but no. As I approached the intersection it became clear that there was some kind of road race going on, and traffic was stopped to allow a seemingly endless amount of runners to pass.

This is my biggest grievance with this city: the lack of signage for roadblocks and sidewalk closures. I cannot count how many times I have been out walking and suddenly, without warning, the sidewalk would be ripped up or otherwise blocked off, leaving me with two suboptimal options: doubling back for blocks until I found a crosswalk, or jaywalking. Would it kill them to put up a sign? On this day, there were no markers indicating a running route, merely neon-clad people with stop signs at various intersections, gesturing that-a-way. In fact, not all roads were blocked off and it was apparent that the race itself was taking place on the sidewalks and bike lanes; vehicles were driving on the roads with the runners, but of course, were blocked from driving through the runners.

I witnessed a wild case of road rage, wherein a truck tried to turn right. He had been driving on the road with the runners, but was waiting for a gap in the crowd of runners to turn, at which point he would no longer be in the running route. He started to turn when there was a gap. I suppose he would have made it just fine, without, you know, mowing anyone over, but one of the race workers ran up and started hitting the slow-moving truck with his stop sign. The truck, unbelievably, kept going while the neon-clad man shrieked and pummelled his truck. How the fuck am I going to get to work? the driver of the truck screamed back at the neon-clad man. It was upsetting but also? Some signage to say that the road would not be passable would be nice. An ounce of prevention, etcetera. We do not condone road rage here at the Boyhouse, but I was reminded of one of my former bosses, who told me sometimes he really could understand Michael Douglas’s character in Falling Down.

As it was, I was standing there, unable to cross the street, wondering what to do. I was not the only confused pedestrian: there were many walking on the other, non-running side of the street. I desperately wanted to join them, but that would involve crossing through the flood of runners and also Frogger-ing through moving cars. I neither wanted to get run over nor pummelled with a stop sign. Rex was getting more and more excited with the crowd of runners and cheering people. Let me tell you something about Rex: he is a very good dog, he is well-behaved and affectionate, he listens and understands when I talk to him. However. When he gets excited, he barks. He does not bark when a stranger enters our home, but a friend? Bark bark bark. He’s the world’s worst guard dog. He is also huge, and so his bark is loud and deep and non-dog people can be unsettled by this. I suppose I could have turned around and retraced the way I came, but I was more than halfway by that point, and I didn’t want to add an extra three kilometres to our walk. I made a choice, and I went with it. Since I couldn’t cross the street safely, I short-leashed barking Rex and started to walk against the flow of runners, keeping as far out of the way as I could. I thought if I could just get past this mass of people, I could zip across the street and be out of the crowd. Optimism! It’s my downfall.

If the beach was the sidewalk and the Canada geese were runners, you can imagine what I was facing.

Unfortunately for me, as soon as I made this decision, the 2:00 pacemaker ran by (was it a half marathon? I still don’t know because THERE WAS NO SIGNAGE), and with him was a mass of people. Now we were fully in the crowd, but going the other direction. As the bystanders cheered, so did Rex. Bark bark bark. In this grim way we walked another block and a half, which was the longest block and a half of my life. I saw a small gap in the runners AND the vehicle traffic, and I immediately seized the day and my chance. I ran across the street and broke free of the crowd. Relieved, I thought I could wind my way down to Lakeshore Road and from there make my way back to the car.

See a gap, seize the gap.

What a great plan! Except that by the time I got to Lakeshore, it became apparent that it too was part of the race route, except now we were trapped walking WITH the flow of runners. Happily, these were the super-fast runners – the Catrinas, if you will (HI CATRINA) – and so they were few and far between. Unhappily, as they passed us at their high speeds, Rex got excited with the thought of running! With people! And so again I short-leashed him and tried my best to keep out of the way. Awww cute dog! the runners said as they passed. I smiled weakly. Rex barked.

Finally, I could see more neon-clad people up ahead, directing the runners to turn left. Traffic, again, was backed up massively. Now I had a plan! I could walk past the turnoff and keep going straight. I would be free! Hopefully no vehicles would angrily u-turn onto the sidewalk and run me over, given that traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see, but I could find my way back to the car. Eventually.

By this time, Rex had calmed down. He wasn’t trying to run. He wasn’t barking. Few people were running past us now, similar to the number of people who would run past us on a normal, non-chaotic day. We approached the corner where the runners were turning left. I could taste the finish line, as it were. Not the literal finish line – who knew where THAT would be – but I would be out of this chaos. And as I approached the turnoff, I heard claps and cheering and you can do it! type commentary.

But there was no one around me.

I looked around. The bystanders were cheering for me! I smiled a little sheepishly. I’m not…I’m not in this race? I said, which felt like a statement of the obvious, to which a woman replied We know. We just like your dog. Rex barked.

Weekly Reading

American Fantasy. I wasn’t prepared for a book about middle-aged ladies on a booze cruise that features a middle-aged boy band loosely based on the New Kids on the Block to be a moving statement on midlife reinvention and revival, but here we are. It took me about fifty pages to really get into this book, because there are so many characters and it was hard to keep track of who’s who. But once it got going, it really captivated me. I was never a NKOTB fan even though I was exactly the right age, but I knew a lot of girls who were, and this felt like a peek into crazed fandom. It also felt so resonant, the musings of middle age and what it is like to be in your fifties. It did not make me want to go on a cruise, let alone a musical cruise, but it made me smile and also think a lot about the little gifts that life gives us.

Clutch. This really seemed like a book I would love – five women navigating friendships, relationships, careers, and motherhood. But the truth is that I should have DNF’d it. I should have known after the first few chapters, when the women take mushrooms in chocolate form and then go shopping, that this book was not for me. And yet for some ungodly reason I pushed through. I found it incredibly dull and tedious, with excessive detail and telling, not showing, with no nuance or emotion. I did not care about a single character except for a horrifying scene involving dogs. I cared about the dogs. The rest of this was a total slog and I wish I hadn’t wasted my time. Ah well, onward and upward.

Limelight. I really enjoyed this author’s The Sweet Spot, so I thought I’d check out her back catalogue. This book is about a woman who moves with her family from Dallas to NYC, and through a series of events, becomes a personal assistant to an absolutely odious teenage pop star, with the job to get him ready for his Broadway debut. It turns out that I really don’t like reading about odious teenage pop stars, so this book wasn’t a win for me by any stretch. However, I really do love Poeppel’s writing style, so I am going to try again with another of her books. The writing style was what kept me going, despite disliking the story.

Happy October, friends! I realized, in preparing to do another Ask Me Anything, that I have not answered a question from the last one, ten months ago. Whoops! That will be for next week, and apologies to my friend and one of my longest-term readers, Steph (HI STEPH). In the meantime, don’t forget about Elisabeth’s walking club, the CBWC (HI ELISABETH) and perhaps you too can become an unwitting participant in a road race. xo

Maybe

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As much as I love my own clothing, I also love admiring other people’s outfits and sartorial choices. Seeing a young teen in the height of summer wearing black tights, boots, and ripped denim shorts, accessorized with bright red lipstick and a look of general angst makes me smile with nostalgia. It reminds me of a period of my own youth; ditto the young women swanning chillily around the Costco freezer aisles clad only in crop tops and booty shorts. I also love seeing older ladies with their matching shoes and handbags, statement necklaces coordinating with their blouses and elastic-waist pants. That will be me one day! I mean, it may be me now.

Rarely do I have this same we are one feeling with clean-cut white men in their sixties, but I did recently when I spotted such a person wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt at Superstore. Che Guevara! What a statement! I had one of those myself, circa 1990, although mine was red while this gentleman’s was green. I mentally saluted him.

No longer do I have my red Che tee, but I wear this ekaminhale tank in honour of Canada Day.

Kelowna is a summer-tourist town, and so traffic is definitely heavier at this time of year. Since I lived most of my life in Calgary, I refer to Kelowna traffic as “traffic,” in that it might now take you 15-20 minutes to get basically anywhere, as opposed to 10-15. It means literally nothing to me, but it must mean a lot to some people, judging by the fellow who was behind me when I was on my way to Superstore to pick up groceries and send admiring thoughts to 60-year-old Che Guevara fans.

I was stopped at a red light, waiting to turn right. The person in front of me was also stopped, and although there was a small gap in traffic (“traffic”), she hesitated. Maybe she was waiting for a bigger gap. Maybe she was worried a pedestrian was going to cross. I don’t know, but her pause prior to turning was approximately three seconds long. At that point, the man behind me had had enough. He laid on his horn – for longer than the woman was stopped – and when I looked in my rearview mirror he was gesturing, his mouth moving violently. Unless my lip-reading skills fail me, he was cursing this woman and her cautious approach to driving.

Of course after the turn I found myself directly beside the man at the next red light, who was again gesturing and, apparently, swearing. I wondered how miserable life must be in order for someone to be that worked up by what could be, at most, a tiny blip of a delay. Maybe he’s getting a divorce, I thought to myself. Maybe his wife died. Maybe his child is in the ICU at the hospital and he just wants to go home and shower before returning to be by his side. Maybe he lost his job or his investments tanked or he discovered he has cancer. I related this to my husband later, who replied that maybe he was just an asshole.

Well, there’s always that. I did think of my husband’s words later in the week when I was walking Rex. One of our regular routes is on the greenway by a creek, and I cannot emphasize enough how wide this walkway is. It’s designed not only for walkers and runners, but also bikes and horses. Five people could walk abreast easily at any given time. In other words, it is very easy to pass people if need be.

HOT DOG! or, the reason we walk early in the day

I did pass a woman with a small dog; as always, I smiled and said Good morning, to which she said nothing. I didn’t really clock this at the time, since I was immersed in a podcast dissecting, of all things, Mrs Dalloway, and Rex was busy sniffing the ground. We stopped as he investigated the greenery from which the week before a garter snake had emerged; I supposed Rex was waiting to see if the wiggly moving twig was still there. The woman passed me, and I hurried Rex along, an image of him picking up the wiggly moving twig and accidentally crushing it to death floating, Hamlet-like, through my mind.

We walked along sedately, fifteen feet or so behind this woman, when she suddenly stopped. She turned to me furiously and said JUST GO, gesturing wildly in front of her. Rex and I silently walked forward, while the change in perspective from Mrs Dalloway and Clarissa is a significant one played in my ears. From the corner of my eye I could see this woman standing still and staring daggers at me. I kept my gaze forward, wondering what just happened, as I put some distance between us.

Five minutes later I ran into some regulars with their dogs, and as I chatted with them, I could see the woman approach. She stood at a distance, still glaring, her angry energy emanating off of her body, until our small party broke up and went our separate ways.

I don’t know her story. Maybe her dog was once attacked by a big dog, maybe she herself was once attacked by a big dog or by a middle-aged woman in an “I Love Canada” t-shirt, maybe she had a Covid hangover and took social distancing to an extreme, maybe she was just an asshole. But other people exist, and when we leave the confines of our own four walls, we have to figure out how to live in the world as it is.

It reminded me of when I was living in Calgary, only a few months into Life With Rex. We were in – this is an important detail – an off-leash dog park, when a man tore a strip off of me as Rex waggingly approached his dog. Call your goddamn dog! he screamed. What happened? There was no barking or growling or any other questionable behaviour. I quickly went over to him. My dog’s in heat! Get your dog under control! the man yelled, as Rex stood by obliviously, happily wagging.

This happened during a time in which I was under immense, non-dog-related stress. My nervous system was shot. I was completely unprepared to be verbally accosted by a stranger in the dog park, and so I apologized – I APOLOGIZED – as I leashed Rex and led him away. It did not occur to me until later that a) while Rex is male, he has no testicles, and would not be an impregnation threat, and b) WHO TAKES A DOG IN HEAT TO AN OFF-LEASH PARK?

An asshole, that’s who. This was three and a half years ago, and I still cannot come up with a compassionate, empathetic story about this man. My conclusion is he’s just an asshole, and a really stupid one at that.

Weekly Reading

I’m having a book flood right now! I had paused all my holds for our trip, and now they are all coming in. I finish one book and two more are waiting for me at the library. It’s a lovely problem to have, particularly since the guys went to Vancouver for some World Cup watch parties, so I’ve had a lot of uninterrupted reading time.

Lady Tremaine. This retelling of the Cinderella story through the stepmother’s point of view was very entertaining. It went in directions I did not see and had a very satisfying ending. A happy ever after, but different? I really enjoyed it.

Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead. Canadian author alert! Also, dead baby alert. Halfway through this book about a woman whose baby dies at birth, I flipped to the acknowledgements, where my suspicion was confirmed: this author did write this sad story based on her own experience. What it lacks in tight plot and storyline it more than makes up for in emotion and a realistic portrayal of what it is like to live out every parent’s worst nightmare. She writes about the difficulties of watching her best friend having a baby – that lived – on the exact same day as hers died, of going to friend’s baby showers, and of navigating well-meaning but draining and awkward interactions with the public. It’s a story of grief but also of hope, and the author wanted to break the silence around the tragedy that is infant death. I’m glad I read it, and I will read more from this author.

Dog Person. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book by this author, and this, her latest, is a very charming and sweet story about a grieving man who is faced with losing the bookstore he ran with his late partner. The twist? It’s told from their dog’s point of view, who has been tasked with finding someone for the widower to love again. As a warning: the dog is old. We all know what happens in books in which the dog is old, so BE WARNED. But, like having a dog, the joy is worth the end. What a darling book, with such a great first line: “There are two kinds of people in this world: dog people, and people who still need to meet the right dog.”

With the guys away, Rex has been enjoying my undivided attention. My younger son thought that a book written from Rex’s point of view would be 300 pages of Mom Mom Mom I love Mom Mom Mom treat Mom Mom Mom walkies walkies with Mom I love Mom Mom Mom oh no she’s getting in the car without me when will she be back when will she be back when will she SHE’S BACK YAY Mom Mom Mom I love Mom. I mean, it might not be a bestseller, but it would be a bestseller to me. xo

Spring Cleaning

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Bye Bye Birdie

Several months ago, a bird decided it had enough of this cruel world, and kamikazed into our bedroom window. At least, I think that is what happened. I was startled to see a gigantic, bird-shaped splotch on the window, complete with feathers and, how shall I put this delicately, intestinal waste. I immediately ran downstairs and outside, but alas. I could not find the corpse. Possibly the bird did NOT shuffle off this mortal coil but instead survived, but I do not see how. Another possibility is that the body ricocheted far enough away that one of the resident coyotes had a little Circle of Life snack. The one thing I do know is that Rex did not eat it, as he did not have any of his own intestinal waste issues, Rex being a sensitive-stomached big galoompa.

However, this avian disaster occurred at the very start of the cold weather, which precluded the use of the pressure washer, and try as we might with long-handled squeegees, we could not clean it off. I have assuaged my feelings about the minor splodge that is still there by cleaning all the downstairs windows that I can reach with only my outstretched arm and a two-step ladder. I cope by averting my eyes when the sun is shining in that window which, since it’s west facing and I really only use the bedroom to sleep, fold the laundry, and have sex, I don’t see that often.

You can’t see the splodge for most of the day.
But if you look close, you can see a feather.

Heating Things Up

My friend Gigi (HI GIGI) had mentioned recently that she used the self-clean function on her oven, with great results. I have used the self-clean function exactly once, probably fifteen years ago. I thought it would be a great activity on a frigid, minus-30 January day in Calgary. This was not the very worst idea I have ever had, but it is up there, Steve. I did not realize that a) the house would be filled with terrible fumes and, due to the cold I was not able to open the windows without becoming hypothermic, and b) I am terrified of fire and the fact that the oven gets SO HOT was very frightening to me. I waited for the cycle to either finish or for me to perish in the house fire that would surely happen when the oven blew up.

Since then I have mostly used Easy-Off “fumeless” sprays and what my mother calls Elbow Grease to clean my oven, but since moving here almost three years ago I tried to use the Aqua Clean function on my new oven. My mother-in-law has this function and swore it was life changing, but either my oven is inferior or I cook much messier items because I don’t think it works well at all. I think it’s probably the latter; 80% of my oven use has to do with roasting vegetables that have been tossed in oil, which makes things stickier. After almost three years with this oven and dealing with the disappointment that is the Aqua Clean function, I am back with the Easy Off and Elbow Grease method.

Dirty Floors No More (or not much)

In addition to the windows and the oven, Rex also got a spring cleaning!

This will have positive trickle-down effects to the rest of the house. The fuzzier he is, the more dirt, sand, and gravel collects in his paws, to be slowly released throughout the house post-walk every day. He also loves rolling around in the grass, and his thick fur holds onto little leaves and grassy bits, also to be deposited randomly everywhere. I vacuum, and often mop, daily because otherwise we would be living in filth. I’m hoping his haircut will extend the period between vacuuming to every 36, or maybe even 48 hours. Of course, the first thing he did after I drove him home from the groomer’s was to roll around under the grapevines, meaning that his pristine cleanliness lasted exactly 17 minutes, possibly a new record. Well, as I say to my husband when he complains of dead patches in the grass, you can have spotless floors and a perfect lawn OR you can have a dog, and I CHOOSE JOY.

For a dog who really hates being wet, Rex loves the groomer. She is a tiny woman who probably weighs less than he does; she told me that after grooming dogs for 25 years, Rex is the first that she doesn’t have to harness or physically wrangle. She merely tells him to turn, and he does. I do not know how this happens, but everyone at the dog salon refers to Rex as the groomer’s “boyfriend.” When I phone, I can hear multiple voices in the background saying that her boyfriend is coming for a visit. Hilarity ensues. Listen, I am just happy Rex enjoys being groomed, so I just smile when the groomer greets him with a “Hello there, big man.” If it works, it works.

Weekly Reading

Three very buzzy books this week – but one did NOT deliver.

Half His Age. Ninety-nine percent of this book, which follows a 17-year-old girl and her affair with her high school English teacher, is heartbreakingly sad. Against the backdrop of the affair are bigger themes, like consumerism, intergenerational trauma, and acceptance of people for who they are. The ending was hopeful and the writing is fast-paced, almost frantic, which makes for an easy and engrossing read. I did appreciate and enjoy it, but it is full of very gross and graphic details, so be warned if you are prudish or squeamish.

Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage. This memoir is a cautionary tale for all women, to make sure that they know what is going on financially in their marriage. Hoo boy. When we were travelling in Morocco, an older gentleman said to me of the people in the village, “We’re all the same the whole world round, we all just want to take care of our families, be safe, and to have a bit of fun once in a while.” He was talking about villagers who did not have a whole lot in the way of material possessions, to say the least, but I think it applies to everyone, even the very wealthy and privileged, to which social echelon the author belongs. She is the granddaughter of Babe Paley – shoutout to anyone who knows of the Swans of NYC – and was the recipient of generational wealth from both sides of her family, although the discovery of her father’s $40M debt when he died perhaps shows how inherited wealth can mean revert. Anyway, her husband of over 20 years left her a few weeks into the pandemic, in March 2020, and can we talk about all the marriages that ended during the pandemic? It was a real thing. So this man leaves her as he was having an affair, but just…leaves. No explanation. He doesn’t want access to their children. Just…nothing. The book revisits their lives together as she searches for a reason which, by the way, she never gets. She never gets a reason her husband left her, other than “I didn’t want to be married to you anymore.” I literally said, out loud, “NO DON’T DO THAT” many times reading this as she a) changed the prenup against the advice of her lawyer so that she would get NOTHING of any money accumulating throughout their marriage that wasn’t in joint names, b) doesn’t get involved in their finances, c) DRAINS HER TRUST FUNDS TO BUY THEIR APARTMENT AND SUMMER HOUSE AND PUTS IT IN BOTH THEIR NAMES. Don’t do that! Her husband accumulated millions of dollars throughout their marriage and, of course, put it all in his name so because of the prenup she was entitled to nothing. It’s easy to scoff and say that she’s so rich, she could just sell the homes once her husband leaves her with very little financially, but that’s not the point. The point is this woman was ruined emotionally and nearly ruined financially by what seems like a sociopath of a human. The book is nuanced, well-written, and poignant, and it comes to some beautiful conclusions. I couldn’t read it fast enough! I loved it. As a woman who gave up her career to take care of the children, I can really empathise with her. She trusted this man and he ruined her. ALWAYS KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE FINANCES, PEOPLE.

Judy Blume: A Life. When I heard there was a biography of Judy Blume coming out, I did something I very rarely do: I preordered the hardcover. I waited, seething with excitement. Judy Blume! I love her! Then when it arrived a friend alerted me to some controversy surrounding it, namely that Blume was NOT endorsing it. The author says that Blume offered pages and pages of notes, almost all of which he rejected. I guess for his “artistic vision?” I don’t know what specifically Blume did not like about this book, but I am going to speculate that she is not endorsing it because it’s SO BORING. OMG. I would have DNF’d it but I BOUGHT THE HARDCOVER. And it was just the dullest read. I guess this is why I prefer memoir to biography, the latter often is just a dull factual read without any emotion. I’m so annoyed that I now have this EXPENSIVE book in my collection that I will never read again. Chalk this up as one of the most highly anticipated and ultimately disappointing book in my collection.

Tomorrow is my birthday! My first year as a 50+ woman has been great, honestly, and I’m looking forward to the year ahead. I hope you are all having a beautiful week. xo

Five For Friday: The Hoppy Little Updates Edition

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Horse With No Name. For the past thirty-five years or so, my younger brother and I have had a running April Fool’s joke, the punch line of which involves a dead horse. I cannot even begin to explain to you the nuances of said joke, but nary an April 1st passes by without one or the other of us referencing a dead horse.

This hilarity is at the edge of my limit when it comes to April Fool’s. I hate jokes that come at other people’s expense, and so I very much dislike pranks, which often feel mean-spirited and unkind. Also, they can backfire. I felt vindicated in my general loathing of pranks when a friend told me about removing the filling from Oreo cookies and replacing it with toothpaste, thinking her kids would immediately spit out the concoction and laugh at her antics. Instead, the kids ate all the tampered cookies. I’m no doctor, but probably we shouldn’t be consuming that much toothpaste? And I could see myself falling for this as I love the taste of mint. Anyway. April Fool’s! I find it SO dumb at best, and potentially hazardous at worst.

Up On Cripple Creek. I was telling an elderly couple about my leash mishap and fall, and the gentleman asked which side I fell on. I assumed he was talking about what side of my body, but he meant what side of the pathway; i.e., the creek side or the non-creek side. I fell on the non-creek side.

After he asked that, I started to have some weird post-mildly-traumatic stress thinking. I could really visualize an alternate scenario in which I was on the creek side of the path, and ended up tumbling down the very steep bank into the icy cold water, breaking bones and drowning my phone. Like, I could really SEE it, and now I can’t unsee it, and I am guiding Rex to the opposite side of the path at all times because WHAT IF. And THEN I started seeing a scenario in which I was being watched and filmed, because of course people are interested in the fascinating and action-packed way Rex and I plod along every morning, and the video of me flying through the air and landing in the creek, hitting everything possible on the way down, becomes a viral sensation and I turn into Pete from Mad Men.

Feeling All Right. Other than this weird mental imagery, I seem to have recovered from my fall. In other words, my sitz bone is no longer bruised and painful. Happily, my plantar fasciitis seems to be abating as well, after three weeks of intense foot stretching, ball rolling, and icing, along with a steady rotating diet of Advil and Tylenol. It probably would have gotten better quickly if I stayed off it entirely, but we all know that’s not going to happen. I cannot even imagine the mental state I would be in without my daily constitutional, not to mention Rex.

Rex does have a bed – several beds, in fact – but when I am reading on the couch he wedges himself between it and the coffee table. I was marvelling to the guys about how calm and mellow Rex is, and they looked at me like I had just eaten a shoe. After a brief silence, they all started to talk at once about how Rex is NOT a calm and mellow dog, and that I only think that because we walk 5-7 km daily prior to 9 am. I suppose this is correct. Again I started imagining alternate scenarios in which I shatter bones by falling into the creek and Rex DOESN’T get his daily walk and omg you guys, I must stop thinking of this alternate universe.

Boogie Shoes. Part of my plantar fasciitis recovery process has been wearing sandals in the house, as opposed to my usual bare or sock feet. I think it’s really helpful and also, I cannot help but feel like the guy wearing crocs and socks.

At least I’m not leaving the house like this.

Rich Girl. My friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) sent me this:

Because I am a woman of great privilege, I texted her this photo from Superstore.

LOOK WHO WON THE LOTTERY Hannah replied, because I am a Fancy Rich Lady who buys Mini-Eggs and who will be making them into little nests today.

Also, I cannot think of the word “nest” without thinking about the couple’s therapy scene in Old School, where Frank talks about panties and then, when his wife makes a noise of disgust, says “I thought…I thought we were in the Trust Tree, are we not? In the nest?”

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and that you can splash out on Mini-Eggs or similarly ridiculously priced Easter treats. xo

Fear of Flying, and Rats

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I was walking with Rex along the greenway, looking around me at the scenery. Rex stopped to sniff and I took that opportunity to really embrace the zen of the moment, noticing the swelling buds on the tree, the rushing of the creek, the beauty and glory of nature. After a moment, I realized we had been standing there for longer than a normal sniff. I glanced down at Rex to see him smelling a large dead rat.

How the rat shuffled off this mortal coil was a mystery, as it did not seem injured in any way, other than being dead, and how it came to be lying in the middle of a very wide walkway was also a significant unknown. Prior to my reverie about the wonder of the natural world, I had been listening to a podcast episode about the book 1984. The hosts had just gotten to the part about Winston and the cage full of rats, and I did wonder, absently, if I had somehow caused this dead rat to materialize with my own thoughts. Am I manifesting dead animals now? Am I moving them onto the walking path with my mind?

In addition to the horror and the question about manifestation, I also had gratitude, as I hurried Rex away, for two things: a) that Rex isn’t Barkley, who would have surely eaten the rat, and b) that this didn’t happen earlier in the week, when we had a leash mishap.

On Monday – Rex’s fifth birthday – we had an incident which was much less psychologically traumatizing, but significantly more painful physically. We were walking along when I saw approaching us a gentleman I have seen many times before, accompanied by his very reactive dog. Rex is generally either friendly or disinterested when we encounter another dog, unless that dog is reactive, at which point he becomes Giant Angry Rex.

So I brought him in close to me. I use a waist leash, so I can really put my body weight into controlling 102 fuzzy pounds. I started speaking softly to him as we started to pass, and probably it would have been fine had the other dog not suddenly lunged towards us, snarling and snapping. Rex lunged back and at that moment, the clasp of his leash broke, and the sudden release caused me to catapult backwards, not unlike a cartoon character. I landed, full force, on my right sitz bone, halfway down the slope off of the walking path.

It was kind of a disaster. The man called out Sorry! Are you okay? but couldn’t help me, because his dog was going bananas, and now Rex was loose. Fortunately, the man hurried away and Rex realized I was down for the count. He sat beside me, Lassie-like, until I could get back on my feet. If I had landed slightly differently, I likely would have fractured my tailbone, but as it was, I just bruised myself. It reminded me of the strength-training adage thick thighs save lives in terms of staving off osteoporosis, but in this case it was juicy booty to the rescue. Since it happened so quickly, I didn’t try to break my fall, which was fortunate, as in breaking my fall I would have probably broken, or at least sprained, my wrist.

Another issue now arose. The clasp, which was probably slowly wearing out over time, was completely broken on Rex’s leash, and now we were halfway through a 5km loop. I couldn’t really have him unleashed, so I had to jerry-rig his leash around his harness and hope for the best. If he had pulled – or encountered any kind of dead animal, rat or similar – my tenuous hold on him would probably have, like hell, broken loose.

Of course I immediately purchased a new leash the moment we got home.

Between a flare of plantar fasciitis in my right foot and an extremely sore right sitz bone, it’s been a bit of a painful week. The seated part of my yoga practice has been tricky, to say the least! But it’s a vindication for strength training, which I hate, but do grudgingly for my bone health. I guess I’ll keep at it, grimly lifting and lunging and doing all those boring things, just in case I end up flying through the air again.

Weekly Reading

After rereading The Age of Innocence, I realized that I had never read The House of Mirth! I think it is the best Wharton – it follows Lily Bart, a woman whose face is truly her fortune, and who keeps trying to punch above her weight, socially-speaking. It’s a brilliant illustration of the plight of the woman without independent means, and how marriage was, ultimately, an economic decision. I really loved this dramatic depiction of the downfalls associated with not marrying wealth while young and beautiful, and how Lily’s worth was, ultimately, tied up in her appearance and social standing.

I went to get the mail this weekend, and what awaited me there could have knocked me over with a tiny feather quill.

My dear friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE) had sent me her Jane Austen figurine! And because such a lady cannot travel unaccompanied, she was escorted by these two fellows:

I don’t actually feel worthy of such generosity, but I will take care of her – and the gnomes – with all my heart. Thank you, Michelle! What a lovely, unexpected joy!

I can hardly believe that we are at the end of March – I hope it’s lamb-like for all of you. Take care, friends. xo

Small Appliance Chaos

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I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, although less time than I used to, back in the days when the kids were in school and it felt like at least fifty percent of my one wild and precious life was spent procuring, preparing, and cleaning up after said procurement and preparation of food.

It’s not fifty percent in this season of life, but it’s still a hefty chunk of the day, and it’s because of this that I am a devotee of small kitchen appliances. As it should be abundantly clear by now, the coffee maker is the number one small appliance in my house – let’s not have a murder! – and the Vitamix, used multiple times a day by multiple people, is a close second. Tied for third are my stand mixer and air fryer, the latter being a dark horse. I did not expect such an item to take a place of importance in my life, but here we are. The last in this list is my food processor, which gets used three or four times a month, and of which I have burned through several over the past fifteen years or so. What can I say, I used to test a lot of recipes for YMC, RIP all my recipes.

If you have been keeping track, you will no doubt remember the Vitamix debacle of last June, which was resolved much more happily than anyone, least of all me, expected. And of course we all know about my recent coffee maker woes, which have also been happily resolved, luckily for my family and anyone who comes into contact with me. We also all know that things happen in threes, and so it should not surprise anyone that another one, as they say, bit the dust, and that one was the stand mixer.

Now listen. This is only a minor grievance. This run of small appliance deaths is not, truly, a tragedy. It’s not even tragedy-adjacent. It’s not like having one of the big three – fridge, stove, washing machine – die. It’s a mild inconvenience at worst.

Deep down, I knew it was coming. I have had this mixer at least since the kids were in early elementary school, possibly even preschool. I have put it through its paces at least twice a week for fifteen years or more. And three or four weeks ago, as I was mixing up some banana muffins, I heard a little snap.

Well, a broken whisk isn’t the end of the world, is it? I figured I could probably buy a new attachment, if indeed this model of stand mixer still exists. In any case, it still worked. Maybe not as efficiently as before the whisk snapped, but it still got the job done.

Then, last week, I was AGAIN making banana muffins with the broken whisk attachment, and when I unplugged the mixer the electric ground stayed behind in the plug outlet. I stared at it for a few minutes, looked at the broken plug in my hand, and then stared into space. Yikes! I might be able to work with a semi-broken attachment, but I am not willing to get electrocuted. My husband suggested getting the plug replaced, but I felt that was only a delay of the inevitable.

Well, as he said last year at this time, when I had the Great Closet Crisis of 2024, it is the best time for something like this to happen. I have said it before and I will say it again: it is WEIRD that Black Friday is a thing in Canada. Do not get me wrong, I am also HAPPY that Black Friday is a thing in Canada, but it’s still weird. Weirder still is that Black Friday is now code for “the entire month of November.” Soon it will be Black Friday on the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. And then it will be Black Friday In July, and after that it will just be Black Friday every day of the year. If every day is Black Friday, then is any day Black Friday? It’s a question for the shopping philosophers.

Weird or not, I gratefully purchased myself a discounted stand mixer, which arrived on Saturday, with plenty of time for holiday baking. That hasn’t been started yet, because there was a bigger project this weekend at the Boyhouse.

The tree is up! The season has shifted to full-on festive, and it’s all holiday music, all the time around here.

Weekly Reading

I have had no fewer than twelve library books out over the past couple of weeks. Every time I take some back, more holds have arrived. But I’m diligently working on the stack!

It’s A Love Story. This book is about the stories we tell ourselves ABOUT ourselves, and how we let those stories define us, for better or worse. There are some nice themes about family and open and honest communication, and about self-fulfilling prophecies, but it took me about a quarter of the book to get invested. I found the main character hard to like, but there was a nice redemption arc and, as it should, everything works out nicely in the end.

The Enchanted April. What a charming, delightful book! This book, written post-WWI, follows four women from London who rent an Italian castle for the month of April. The women are mostly unknown to each other, and seem to be unsuitable companions, but everything works out in the most charming way. This book was written in 1922 and spurred a tourism craze to the Italy! Many thanks to my friend Pearl for the recommendation (HI PEARL).

Everyone Is Lying To You. Thrillers aren’t my usual thing, but I enjoyed this page-turner about a tradwife, homesteading influencer whose husband is brutally murdered. Who did it and why? It’s a compelling story about a very weird side of the internet. It’s also an interesting commentary on the idea of comparing your life to those of influencers, and what really goes on behind the scenes. A good November diversion!

Here we are in the very last week of November! Where did the month go? I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are feeling less salty than Rexie, who isn’t a fan of having his bed moved, even if the “moving” is a total of three feet away. xo