Category Archives: Testosterone-y

The End Is Near; Fifty Weeks In

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The End Is Near

Oh, did you think I meant the end of the pandemic? I mean, sure, maybe we are nearer the end than the beginning, but what I meant was we are nearly done with orthodontia in this house.

It was exactly five years ago last week that my older son had braces put on, and many months before that when we started the whole process, and shortly after he had his removed – twenty-six months later – we started all over again with my younger son. Although my younger son was supposed to be on an eighteen-month program by the time he gets them off at the end of the month (it’s MARCH, OMG), it will have also been twenty-six months.

Some of you may remember that my younger son’s original orthodontist ended up being an actual criminal, and we were lucky to get into his current, non-criminal orthodontist, but also he broke two brackets in the first month of having braces, and between all that and then a global pandemic slowing his progress, well. It’s been a long haul, is what I’m saying.

For those of you with more than two children receiving orthodontic treatment, I salute you.

What is it with orthodontist offices? Orthodontia is a practice in which the patients are largely teenagers, and yet their offices do not cater in any way to actual teenagers. Trying to get an appointment is an exercise in extreme frustration. My older son had an orthodontist who was older and very distinguished in his career – he retired and sold his practice (hopefully unknowingly) to the criminal orthodontist – and that man was constantly in demand as a conference lecturer, so getting an appointment was difficult at best. Come back in six weeks! the office would say cheerfully, and then I would find out at the appointment desk that the orthodontist would be out of town giving a lecture series at that time.

I thought it would be better with the new orthodontist, but no. No. This young and vibrant orthodontist has TWO offices, and so he is only at the Calgary office three days a week every other week, which makes appointments tricky.

I try to make appointments so that my son doesn’t miss school, but that’s nearly impossible. Any school breaks, the office is inevitably closed, and if I ask for an appointment late in the day, the response is I can fit you in at 1:15, as if 1:15 is actually considered late in the day by anyone other than an orthodontist’s office. I get up at 4:30 every morning and even I do not consider 1:15 to be late in the day.

Well, as of the end of the month this will be all behind me. To be honest, until last week’s appointment I didn’t truly believe that the treatment is almost completed. I expected to be disappointed once again, so when my son came into the waiting room and said they made molds for his lower teeth, I was actually pleasantly surprised.

Keep the expectation bar low, I guess is the lesson here.

Mother Of The Year

A local liquor store still sends out paper flyers and I was excited to see a wine that I really like on sale for $10 off per bottle. After last week’s orthodontic appointment, I looked at the strapping young man in the passenger seat and decided to seize the day. At $10 off per bottle, I wanted a case and I figured he could be my beast of burden, as it were.

Now, I don’t know if it’s a good idea to take your fifteen-year-old to the liquor store on a Thursday afternoon while you stock up on wine, but that’s exactly what I did. I waffled between it’s okay if a minor is in the store as long as he is accompanied by his mother and I am the literal worst. My son is tall, and anyone with eyes could tell that he isn’t eighteen, but with a MASK, well, who could say. I waited for someone to say something to me but no one did. I guess they aren’t too worried about kids walking around with a case of red wine, with their mothers directing them around.

Particularly when their mothers find a SNOOP DOGG wine and lose their minds.

It’s actually really good, you guys. Very delicious. Snoop Dogg always puts me in mind of my time on the trade floor, joking around with the guys I worked with. Snoop! Snoop-a-looooop! Bring your green hat, let’s go! A prize to the person who can identify that quote*.

*there is no actual prize, knowing the quote is the prize in itself

Outfit of the Week

I know what you’re going to say: two weeks in a row the OOTW features jeans and an actual bra? Okay, maybe you’re not going to say that. Maybe you’re wondering who cares what I’m wearing. I CARE, PEOPLE. I care.

This was my outfit for seeing the orthodontist, although I spent the entire appointment with my coat on, in the waiting room, far away from other people. I still felt good about myself in it. It was a mild (winter) day so tall, warmish boots, jeans, a long-sleeved tee with some exposed skin (I mentioned it was mild) and the cardi my mom gave me for Christmas. Accessorized, of course, with my sparkly heart mask.

Pandemic Reading

This was probably the most interesting, well-written, and well-researched book I have read EVER IN MY LIFE. That is really saying something. As I read it, I kept thinking how long did this take to write? How long did this take to research? How is this man so witty? There is just so much information here, but it is all presented in a most accessible and witty way. I love the dry British humour and it is sprinkled everywhere. Every single body part and function is described with entertaining anecdotes and facts. If you are even slightly interested in anatomy, human biology, and medical sciences, I highly recommend this book.

What came to me as I read this was that all of our modern medical knowledge and advances originated with incredibly bizarre and possibly dangerous experiments. I lost count of the number of times the author would write without having any idea of the possible consequences and then describe something totally bonkers, like a researcher injecting half a pint of sheep’s blood into a volunteer, or the guy who put a thermometer up his rectum and a tube into his stomach and poured ice water down the tube to see how low his temperature could go. The latter, by the way, was instrumental in determining how cold we can take the body for open-heart surgery.

In an attempt to learn how, exactly, the circulatory system works, a German doctor inserted a catheter into an artery in his arm, threaded it through his body until he reached the heart, at which point he was excited to find out that he did not die. Then he walked over to the x-ray department to prove what he had done. This was an incredible discovery but sadly, that doctor was also an early supporter of the Nazis and, well.

It was incredibly upsetting and unsettling to discover that much of our medical knowledge today came from horrific experiments done by the Germans and the Japanese during World War II.

Let me tell you, after reading about women’s health and the treatments for breast cancer, I am thrilled to be living in the modern age.

Hmm.

Someone recommended this to me – who was it? – and I duly put it on my hold list at the library without actually looking at what it was about. When it came in I felt disheartened for two reasons: a) it is huge, and b) the synopsis seemed incredibly dull. I took a deep breath and opened it – and it grabbed me right from the first sentence. This is not a particularly original story – an Irish child born out of wedlock is given up for adoption, struggles all his life with his homosexuality, eventually finds identity, family, and love – but it is so well-written, with heart and humour. It is also incredibly distressing to read about the absolutely brutal treatment of the homosexual community, particularly with regards to the AIDS crisis, over the last eighty years or so. Again, so glad to be living in the modern age. Yes, there is still room for improvement but we have come so far, thank god.

Continuing my Judy Blume rereads! Forever is such a great portrayal of a first love/ sexual experience, it’s so real. It’s Not The End Of The World – a good book about divorce that Blume wrote when her own marriage was in trouble.

Happy March, everyone! So far it’s come in like a lamb – may it stay that way! xo

Shiny Happy Oven; Forty-Three Weeks In

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I know that it has been a crazy week but I have a very important update:

Let us all admire my gleaming, shiny oven!

Cleaning the oven led to one of those If You Give A Mouse A Cookie cleaning scenarios: I soaked the racks in the downstairs bathtub, which led to the scrubbing of said bathtub, which somehow led to the mopping of the downstairs tile, and then, since I had the mop and bucket out anyway, washing the floor of the back entry. Then, for no reason at all, I decided to move all the living room furniture to sweep under it, and, in conclusion, I am very happy my teaching schedule is picking up this week.

Every time I clean my oven I think, that wasn’t so bad, if I did it more often it would be so easy and then I make a resolution to clean it quarterly or at least every four months. Inevitably, years pass, and this same scenario repeats itself. I do have a self-clean function, but I do not use it. I used it once, naively, during the winter and I a) spent the entire time terrified that the oven would catch on fire and burn the house down, and b) the house smelled terrible for days. Never again! I vowed to use only elbow grease and some kind of crazy fume-free spray from that time forward.

Note: my mother-in-law got a new oven and it has a steam-clean function; the oven itself heats up to about 250 degrees with a pan of water inside, and it somehow cleans perfectly. I want that for my next oven, which, hopefully, is years away. My mom told me yesterday that the average age of appliances before they die is seven years, and we bought this oven in 2012, so hopefully I didn’t just jinx myself.

Another note about my mother-in-law: she still has the chest freezer from when she got married in 1962 AND IT STILL WORKS. I mean, it probably sucks up vast amounts of energy resources but IT STILL WORKS. I find that remarkable.

One more note about my mother-in-law: as all of us canners know, it is impossible to buy lids right now. They are…just not available. Who knows when they will be? The last time I saw my mother-in-law, who is an avid canner, she told me that she had recently learned that lids can be reused. As long as they are not damaged in any way, they will still seal. When I expressed extreme skepticism about this, she took me to her pantry and showed me rows of preserves and tomatoes, all with perfectly sealed lids. “Wow,” I said, “I’ve thrown out a lot of lids.” She looked at me and said “I’ve been canning for sixty years, imagine how much money I’ve spent on lids that I’ve thrown in the garbage.” We both silently stared at her jars, contemplating this.

After that visit, I made jam with old lids and voila:

Perfectly sealed! I admit I was a bit worried but I thought that a) jam is a pretty low-risk item, and if they didn’t seal I would just refrigerate them, and b) I like to live dangerously.

As my friend Tora (HI TORA) said back in April, if we can take away one positive from this pandemic, it’s that we are learning new things and saving money.

Part of my New Year’s Mindfulness Resolution is to shop more mindfully, something that absolutely went out the window in 2020 as we all lost our minds in the grocery stores. I think my husband will leave me and my mother will disown me if I attempt another one year shopping challenge but this year, I am going to really try to be mindful about my clothes. I mean, you guys. I have so many clothes. I really do. My closet is literally bursting, but particularly with yoga clothes, sweaters, and boots. Those three items are ALWAYS the items I am attracted to when shopping and I really (probably) (maybe) don’t need more. This year I am going to really try to be mindful when shopping and, when tempted, before hitting “purchase” (because who is actually shopping in person these days, or ever?) I am going to “shop my closet.”

This is not to say that I won’t buy new things, because let’s face it, we all need some source of joy. But maybe, just MAYBE, I don’t need another pair of knee-high black boots. Maybe.

On that note, I introduce…

Outfit of the Week

I will not bore you all with an Outfit of the DAY, who has time for that, but I am going to choose my favourite outfit each week. I love clothes, and I think it’s important – even in a pandemic – to find joy in getting dressed every day, even if that day only involves working on that 1000-piece puzzle my mom gave me for Christmas. That puzzle, incidentally, has taken over our lives. It is our new master. We sit down to look for Just One Piece and then, hours later, look up from The Puzzle, bleary-eyed and completely disoriented.

This is a Friday outfit; underneath that super-cozy sweater is a yoga tank and long-sleeved tee, as I teach on Fridays. Yoga leggings are so comfortable but not quite warm enough on their own for January, so I have also added legwarmers, like the 80s girl I am.

Barkley approves.

Pandemic Reading

Do you want to read about a 54 year old unemployed copy editor who goes to Cuba and instantly falls in love with a 31 year old Cuban woman? Do you want to read about a 54 year old man getting drunk on rum and having sex with his 20 something colleague in the ladies room at a bar? Do you want to hear this self-described unattractive man speak disparagingly about those women’s appearances, including the term “puppy fat” and details about moles and moustaches? Then this is the book for you. There was a small interesting twist but not much of one. I eye rolled through much of this book. Pass.

Oh, this was good! A complex and wonderful book about women and choices, consequences and fresh starts. A woman in Jaipur, who left an abusive marriage at 17, is enjoying a life of renown as a henna artist and herbal healer. Things get complicated when her husband shows up with a sister she didn’t know she had! Includes a few recipes, a history of the caste system, and even a glossary of terms. Highly recommend, unless you’re a person who doesn’t believe that women have autonomy over their own bodies and should have the ability to make choices for themselves.

My friend Julie (HI JULIE) told me about this book; it’s a really incredible book about finding meaning in life, written by a man who survived four different concentration camps and all manner of horrible tortures. Choosing our own response and attitude to the situation we find ourselves in is the last of the freedoms, it is something that can never be taken away. Amazing book.

I ran my library stack right down to zero because my husband has been urging me to read this book for quite some time. It is a very incredible story of survival, but I am not an adventure story type of person, so I cannot say I enjoyed it. The whole time I was reading it, my Mom Voice kept popping up in my head: What are you DOING? GET DOWN FROM THERE RIGHT NOW. Which is, of course, the point of the book.

The boys are back to in-class school this week; fingers crossed all goes well. Have a beautiful week, everyone! xo

Boyhouse Year In Review 2020

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WELL! I don’t think any of us could have possibly predicted the year that we just had, in any capacity. I would like to think that we will never take things for granted again: our health, our ability to travel, our friendships and family, but human nature being what it is, there will come a day when we probably will.

2020 was disastrous in so many ways, but I think that looking back on it, we can see massive change and growth, and, looking forward, glimmers of hope. I know that going through this year has made me re-evaluate many things, and I have realized that many things I felt I could never live without, I have.

So let us look back on the year that was absolutely unlike any year we have experienced, but that will surely be talked about and written about for decades to come.

Boyhouse Year In Review 2020

January

I was stressed out about juggling doctor, dentist, and orthodontist appointments for the boys – remember juggling things? – it was insanely cold and I went for a mall walk like an elderly person, and I got weirdly stressed out about getting a gel pedicure. I also – sob – complained about exam break and my son being home from school IMAGINE YOUR KIDS BEING HOME FROM SCHOOL FOR THREE WEEKS JUST IMAGINE LOLOLOLOLSOB.

January 2020 Nicole was such an innocent, and also I did not go for that gel pedicure.

February

I overheard a man at Walmart asking for extra-small condoms, I went to Math Night at the high school and was comparatively a hippie, I went to Costco on a Sunday afternoon for the first and last time and also baked a heart-shaped cake for dinner with friends, and I wore a different outfit every day in February.

All the outfits were pretty similar though.

March

I talked about how insidious jealousy is, although I freely admitted to being insanely jealous of my friends’ hair, I noticed people buying a LOT of toilet paper at Costco (cue ominous music), I really did try to fulfil my New Year’s Resolution of buying a bra but failed, we cancelled our trip to Mexico and I bought a lot of groceries, my son turned 16 and we had our first Pandemic Birthday, and I accidentally hoarded taco shells.

Everything shut down, including the yoga studio, and so I also started my home yoga practice. This was a huge change because nearly every day for thirteen years I went to the studio to practice in the early morning hours. School was also cancelled “indefinitely.”

April

In what can only be described as the Worst Timing Ever, my coffee maker started leaking, grocery shopping became a harrowing, soul-sucking quest and I started wearing a mask, my sons stopped shaving, I got my very first cloth mask and declared it to be the New Lipstick, I coloured my own hair for the first time in decades, and I cleaned and reorganized the hideous laundry area.

I also had a pandemic birthday and my friends brought me a gift while wearing dinosaur costumes and playing Danger Zone.

May

Some things started to open up, notably the orthodontist, which meant that I did NOT have to use toenail clippers to cut my son’s brace wires, we had a Pandemic Mother’s Day and I stressed out about baking powder, we visited my parents for the first time in months, I aired my grievances, big and small, and I was really on edge about grocery carts.

I also talked about pandemic beauty products.

June

Amid lots of worries, we celebrated Barkley’s birthday, we started to catch up on appointments as medical and dental offices opened, I gave myself a bikini wax and I learned some things are best left to the professionals, the renos were finished on our vacation home and so we went there for a little break and I thoroughly enjoyed the newly-flushing toilet, and I reminisced about Hammerman.

I also shared my hair styling tips, follow me for more great beauty advice.

July

I talked about the role of luck in life, I had lots of adventures, including one in which I learned how outhouses in the backcountry get emptied, I GOT A PELOTON AND IT HAS BEEN LIFE-CHANGING (and also practiced gratitude), and I talked about leaning in and out, yin and yang.

I also talked about sweat! Again, follow me for more fascinating and glamourous topics.

August

I finally watched Hamilton and also bleached my hands accidentally, someone called the cops on my son and his band, I realized after months of wearing shorts that the boys had vastly outgrown all their pants, we were on a vacation of sorts and I prepared for the boys to actually go back to actual physical school.

I also talked about my beloved herb garden.

September

The boys went back to school (!!!!!!), my son turned 15 and had a socially distanced birthday party, I marked six months since I had my hair cut and professionally coloured, I had the Lido Shuffle stuck in my head and I actually did get my hair cut and coloured.

Also, Barkley shared my passion for fall fruits.

October

My son finally (FINALLY OMG FINALLY) shaved off his pandemic moustache and I got excused from jury duty, we enjoyed incredible fall colours and for the first time ever I got to eat something at Thanksgiving dinner (that I made myself, but still), I had an adventure at Costco, and I talked about Mom Jeans and Dressy Sweatpants.

November

My husband declared himself the winner in the Halloween decoration war, it was the return of the Tiny Secret Festive Season and I finished my Christmas shopping, I had a small breakdown in the grocery store, I talked about Friluftsliv, and we got put on a mini-lockdown.

I also had fun – and THANK YOU ALL FOR WEIGHING IN – discussing Divisive Issues! That was probably my favourite post to write, and my favourite comment section of 2020.

December

Everything was fine, I got festively crazy, the mini-lockdown turned into a major lockdown which we are still in today, and we got a whole lot of snow.

I also talked about being a Linus’ blanket to someone else’s Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

As we wrap up 2020, I’m looking back at my goals for the year (I still didn’t buy a new bra) and looking forward to setting goals for a fresh new year. I learned a lot about myself this year, I grew as a person, so many things changed, there was much sadness and despair but also much happiness, beauty, gratitude, and time with my little family. (SO MUCH TIME WITH MY LITTLE FAMILY).

Thank you so much for coming along with me on my adventures during this strange year; I wish you so much joy and love for the New Year. Here’s to 2021! xoxoxo

Festively Locked Down; Thirty-Nine Weeks In

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What Even Day Is It

Here we are, the last week of school (or, “school”) before the holidays, and I am feeling that old familiar what even day is it feeling. When I wake up in the morning, I rarely think in terms of Monday-Friday; instead, I categorize the day by what class I’m teaching or IF I’m teaching. My week is Strengthen and Tone, Seniors, Grocery Day, Foundations, and Ashtanga, but this week my registered classes – 3/4 of the classes I teach – have all wound up for the year, and so I’m feeling a little at sea.

Monday! It’s Monday. We are thirty-nine weeks into the pandemic and in a full lockdown.

Library Lockdown

Yes, as of yesterday, we are now in a full-scale lockdown; in other words, it is now illegal to have a gathering of any kind, any number, inside or outside. I feel a bit salty about this, as I haven’t gathered with other people in months, and my god, how are we back here again but you know. Perspective. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.

I WAS horrified to learn that the library is now closed. Our library app has a “for later” shelf where I have listed about 150 titles; the app has a feature that shows which of those “for later” titles are available right now. When I discovered the library was closing, I did what anyone in my position would do, and started putting all of those available titles on request immediately. It was the library version of panic-buying at the grocery store.

I was feeling quite satisfied with myself, thinking of the titles that would come in before the library closed at 5:00 on Saturday, until I found out that, unlike during the last shutdown a) the library is still doing curbside hold pickups, b) the return chute is still open and due dates are still firm, and c) all of the books came in and this is my current To Read pile:

And I have another FOUR titles that I need to pick up this week. Luckily my social calendar isn’t exactly packed. It’s fine!

Wrapper’s Delight

My least favourite Christmas-related task is gift wrapping. I am terrible at gift wrapping. Maybe I should have saved some of those gift bags? But we are a Tear Open The Paper kind of family, so I stand by my decisions.

One of the fun things about doing so much online shopping is that when you go to wrap the gifts, you discover all the things that you bought and kind of forgot about. As I was wrapping, it occurred to me that some t-shirts I had ordered for my older son – whose personal style is jeans and a graphic t-shirt, but not just any graphic t-shirt, it has to be a specific unique random thing that I’ve often never heard of, who even is Tyler Bryant – had not yet arrived, even though I ordered them in early November.

Not two minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. It was the elderly lady across the street letting me know that she would be away for a few days, and if anything happened to her house, could I call her, and by the way, did I know I had mail? And like a Christmas miracle, there it was, the package of Seinfeld-themed t-shirts with These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty and Look to the Cookie emblazoned on them.

Everything is fine!

Speaking of (W)rap

If you are a person who has a Spotify account, undoubtedly you will have discovered your number one song for 2020. My music genres are wildly varied, from hard rock and 1990s hip hop for workouts and running to Broadway show tunes, from mellow 1970s music to soul and Motown, alongside the hippie chanting and instrumental music I use for my yoga classes. I was excited to see what my very number one listened to song was.

It was – wait for it – Walk This Way by Run DMC. I was puzzled – I do love that song, it is on two separate playlists for running and cardio workouts, but I was surprised it was my number one song.

The mystery was solved when my husband looked at his list. His number one song was Let’s Stay Together by Al Green, followed by Copacabana by Barry Manilow, two songs he has never consciously chosen to listen to in his life.

His Spotify account is linked to our kitchen Sonos, which is what I listen to when I’m in the kitchen, which, as we know, is many, many hours a week. Hilariously, the rest of his list was filled with Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, and the Doobie Brothers, and although I am amused at the idea of him secretly grooving away to Nights on Broadway, you will have to believe me when I say he is not a Bee Gee kind of guy.

Festive Friday

I have declared the two Fridays leading up to Christmas to be Festive Friday, and so last Friday we decorated gingerbread men. This is, as longtime readers will know, an annual tradition that leaves us with dozens of identical gingerbread men with three buttons, two eyes, and a smile, all made by me, and about a dozen of ridiculous messes that no one will eat because that icing is really not that great. Allow me to illustrate.

After decorating, the boys proceeded to squirt the remains of the icing tubes into glasses of water, which they drank like tequila shots, at which time I uncorked a bottle of wine.

Pandemic Reading

Thanks to Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) for recommending this book. Light-skinned Black twins run away from home to start new lives – separately. It is a compelling read about racial identity, gender identity, and the pull of family. I immediately looked up other books by this author and put them on my (ever-growing) to-read list at the library.

So. Did someone recommend this to me? Was I drunk when I was on the library app? All I know is that I would have never put this on hold if I had read the plot synopsis. DEAR GOD. It is set in the fall of 2020. It concerns – wait for it – a deadly virus that is causing a global pandemic. A deadly NOVEL CORONAVIRUS. The incredibly uncanny thing about this is that it was written and edited between 2013-19, and published MARCH OF 2020, and there are many details about self-quarantine, wearing masks, and end-times panic about groceries. What the what. Why did I even read this to the end, I don’t know. It was written in a style I very much like: different viewpoints and timelines, showing how all of the characters are interconnected in the manner of no man is an island, ask not for whom the bell tolls, etc. However. Maybe if we WEREN’T currently living this dystopian nightmare, I’d feel differently about reading it, but we are, and I cannot UN-recommend this book strongly enough. Unless you like reading about the deaths of millions of children, then go for it, fill your boots.

Yummy Things

In addition to gingerbread, this week I made mint squares, peppermint bark – the Christmas treat that is so easy and yet always impressive – and chocolate truffles. Important addition to the latter: after rolling into balls, I placed them on wax-paper lined cookie sheets and then put them in the freezer. Meanwhile, I melted 1 cup chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon coconut oil, then dipped the frozen truffles into the mixture. Then I put them back to the freezer, and I’m taking them out as needed.

Have a beautiful week, everyone! Are your kids still in “school” this week? Are you all ready for the holidays? Tell me everything. xo

Slowly Losing It; Twenty-Two Weeks In

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Get It On, Bang A Gong

With absolutely no prompting and zero information on the Noise Infraction Police Situation, my neighbours two doors down – a couple in their late sixties – told me that every day at 5:30, when my son practices his drums, they come out into their backyard to listen to him. “When you have your windows open we can really hear him,” the wife said, and when I sheepishly said that it’s pretty loud, she answered with “It’s music! He sounds great!” I feel Very Fortunate for my neighbours and more inclined than ever to encourage more band practices (the socially distanced kind, of course) in my basement. Get ready for some covers of Another One Bites The Dust and Plush, neighbours!

Channeling Tammy Faye

Every night for two weeks, I wondered why my mascara was so hard to remove, and every morning for two weeks I woke up with raccoon eyes and mascara residue still, somehow, on my eyelashes. I wondered if they changed the formula; it was going on a little funny as well. Every day. Two weeks. Then I looked at the tube and realized I had accidentally bought the waterproof kind.

You Go To School To Learn, Not For A Fashion Show

The boys have not worn jeans since March; they have been, weather be damned, exclusively in shorts. They are starting in-person school in just a couple of weeks, and so I had them try on their jeans to see where we were at.

You know how you can be around people for twenty-four hours a day and not really realize that they’ve changed until you look at old photos or, in this case, have them try on clothes they haven’t worn for five months? They’ve GROWN.

My older son went to try his jeans on and said, “Mom, I’m not sure if it’s just because I haven’t worn jeans in a while, but were they always this tight?” He came into the room looking like Kramer when he went back to jeans. They were absolutely, 1980s-Girls-Who-Wore-Jeans-Still-Damp-So-They-Could-Dry-Tighter, skintight, ending at mid-calf. He could barely walk. Then he bent over and the jeans completely ripped up the butt. My younger son’s jeans fit similarly but with less dramatic ripping.

Even if we weren’t in a pandemic, the thought of actually taking the boys to a store is defeating to me; their sizes are so strange that stores rarely carry them, so we ordered online and I chose in-store pickup. The date for pickup was last week, the same date that all the masks I ordered from a great company called Wedding Star were due to arrive. I cheerfully walked to the mall, which was busier than any place I’ve been to but with mandatory masks – and everyone complying – it felt okay. Jeans in hand, I waited happily for the masks to arrive on my doorstep…and waited. I wondered if I got the dates wrong, but when I went to look at the confirmation email, I couldn’t find it. I went to the website, and there was my order, that I HAD NOT FINISHED. My little cart was sitting there, ten masks in, waiting for me to pay. Oops. Happily, they are due to arrive BEFORE the start of school, and I have the confirmation to prove it. Plus, now all of the masks were on sale. Who knew being a flake could pay off?

Stick It To The Man

My younger son had to go for blood work, and, as with anything in our new reality, I was a bit nervous. The lab, at the best of times, seems like a disgusting petrie dish of humanity. I needn’t have worried. For one thing, as I said masks are now mandatory in all public spaces; even so, when we were allowed to enter, we had to remove our masks, sanitize our hands, and put on fresh, disposable masks provided by the lab.

Side note: is anyone else a little concerned about the environmental impacts of all of this? Disposable everything, harsh chemicals cleaning every surface that could possibly be touched by another person, not to mention gallons of hand sanitizer, possibly ingested when we eat anything and possibly absorbed into our bodies? Hello, superbugs and environmental crisis. Anyway. One thing at a time.

*repeat mantra* we are all just doing the best we can, we are all just doing the best we can

Anyhoo, back to the lab. We had to line up, physically distanced, in the hallway so the staff could control the numbers, and then after we were freshly masked and sanitized and signed in for his appointment, we were directed immediately to a cubicle where the technician would take his blood. There was a waiting room but I assume it was for people who had arrived a bit too early.

My son and I were reading and laughing at the warning signs with regards to getting blood work, that were posted on the cubicle wall. Side effects include minor discomfort! Oh no! You may have minor discomfort! My son pointed out bleeding from the puncture site. “Isn’t that how they take blood? Bleeding from the puncture sight?” Ha ha ha, yes, well.

We finished the appointment and went to the stairwell – I never take the elevator for less than five floors, and we were on the second – but it was closed due to cleaning. “Well, I guess it has to be the elevator,” I said, turning to my son, who at the same time said “Um, Mom?”

The cotton ball was soaked with blood and it was dripping down his arm. Huh.

Back to the lab!

Of course, there was a big lineup when we got there, and at the very front was an older couple, going through a very long explanation with the technician – who had her back to me – about why there was two of them and why they were there so early. The gentleman had aphasia, yes he speaks English but doesn’t always understand what’s happening, yes they understood that all chairs were six feet apart so in the waiting room, those were brand-new disposable masks they had on, did they really have to use the lab ones, okay, yes, they would use the lab ones. Meanwhile, my son and I stood there as patiently as possible; it’s not like he was bleeding OUT and also, as a society we should remember that other people exist and have needs. Aphasia is hard enough to live with, after all, and it was, as Monty Python would say, only a flesh wound.

Once the couple were inside, the technician gestured to the next person in line, who had watched my son and I standing there, and in turn gave me the universal “OMG, GO!” gesture. I apologetically explained to the woman that we were just there, but my son started bleeding…she looked at his arm and it was High Alert! Code Red! We were rushed into a new cubicle and quickly looked after, which seemed a little dramatic but was appreciated.

The lesson here is, of course, karma, because he also had some minor discomfort.

Pandemic Reading

I don’t know why I keep reading about Truman Capote, when I find his life completely sad and depressing. I guess I like reading about fashion and high society in the 1960s-70s. A few years ago I read The Swans of Fifth Avenue, which was, in my opinion, much more fun than Swan Song. However, this book contains a lot more about Lee Radziwill, who I find kind of fascinating, and also Pam Churchill. Worth a read if you don’t mind depressing end-of-life stories.

Oh, this was good. A psychotherapist seeks therapy to deal with a bad breakup, but ends up facing the fact that she is having a midlife crisis. This is wonderful and life-affirming in every way. I usually photograph pages that contain lines I want to remember, and I could have photographed this whole book.

In lieu of a mountain hike, this week my dear friend and frequent hiking partner Taryn (HI TARYN) and I headed for a 10 km in the foothills – very lovely and so close to home!

Lots more adventures to come this week, I’m sure. And for those of you wondering about my herb garden? Sorry to keep you hanging! xo

Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution; Twenty-One Weeks In

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Turn Down For What

We have officially reached a new milestone. My younger son was practicing with his band in his buddy’s garage, so they could have the door open, be physically distanced, and in general follow Covid-style health guidelines, like the responsible 14-and-15-year-olds they are. His buddy’s dad is in a band, and so has a complete drum kit and set-up, and since it is a garage, it is much cooler than my basement, which is also a practice area, given that we have drums and they are not a portable instrument.

The neighbours did not enjoy their free concert, as evidenced by the noise complaint lodged and the police showing up to shut them down. In the middle of the afternoon, no less! Did you know you can lodge a noise complaint at 2:00 in the afternoon? Neither did I!

Evidently the officer was very nice – my son, the drummer, was the one who had to talk to him – and “no fines will be pressed as it was their first offence.” I am trying VERY HARD to feel compassion for the individual who a) called the police instead of walking twenty steps to the garage to ask them to maybe lower the noise, and b) are that bothered by teens who are not getting into trouble but instead are making music together in the middle of the afternoon that they lodge complaints. Well. Some people are just generally unhappy and in the meantime, I guess practices will take place at my house, as the basement is quieter from the street and also my neighbours are very nice and would never complain.

After they got shut down they apparently went into the field and played golf with tennis balls, which seems to have more potential for damage than playing Stone Temple Pilot covers.

Where The Wild Things Are

Speaking of fields, there is a little green space behind my house. Longtime readers will remember it as the scene of the crime where we found Manny the Mannequin, and not infrequently, a passed-out individual. But not these days! These days it is the hangout of a gang of coyotes. Right behind my backyard, where my elderly dog spends his days. I guess this explains the decline in the wild jackrabbit population.

The Wolfie Dynasty

The older gentleman who lives across the alley and down – just down from the coyote hangout – had a wonderful golden retriever named Wolfie. Barkley, in his spoiled life and advanced age, doesn’t love all other dogs, but he and Wolfie were, insomuch as we can anthropomorphize a couple of dogs, friends. Sadly, Wolfie passed away this winter, but the gentleman has a new puppy now. A sweet golden retriever, and when I asked his name, he replied “Wolfie.”

I was speaking of this phenomenon to my husband, and he recalled, many years ago, that the gentleman had a German shepherd, and he thought that THAT dog’s name was also Wolfie. It turns out, upon questioning, that the current puppy is Wolfie Number Five. The gentleman has, he said, had a Wolfie since the Sixties.

It’s a dynasty of Wolfies! I guess the dogs wouldn’t know the difference anyway, and it sure would take away any confusion over calling the dog by its name.

Summer Breeze

As per usual when we get our 7-14 days of summer, there have been many complaints about the Heat, and Heat Warnings Are All In Effect, the Heat being defined as being 28-29 degrees Celsius with very little humidity. Heat Warning! Is the warning that you may get a little sweaty while walking around outside? Possibly.

Anyway, the complainers are now vindicated, as the weather has turned. In Calgary, when the weather turns, it TURNS. You can actually feel the fall-like chill in the air. The nights are very chilly and even the warm days have that fall feeling. Complainers, you got your way.

Why doesn’t it work that way when I complain about the cold? When I complain about the cold it doesn’t magically get warmer, we just get snow for another six months.

Before it turned, my husband actually had a day off work, my god, a day off, and he accompanied me and the boys on a 13.4 km, 900 metre elevation hike. It was a great day – and we did, in fact, get sweaty.

Note! As per my Favourite Things post, I wore my Routine deodorant and I was perfectly fresh-smelling even after that hike on a warm day.

Pandemic Reading

This was a fun reading week!

This was such a fun read. If we were going to a beach this year, I’d call it a Beach Read, but alas. It was a great Sunny Backyard Read. Part murder mystery, part detective story, part Scooby Doo, this also had a really good theme of body acceptance and the dangers of believing everything we see on social media. Plus, lots of fashion descriptions, which I am HERE FOR.

Ooooh, this was SO GOOD. It’s been a while since I read something that made me want to not do anything else at all, just read. Ooooh, I can’t say anything about this without spoiling it, so I won’t. Just. It’s so good.

I think Suzanne recommended this? Suzanne? Was it you? (HI SUZANNE). It was fascinating, all about children’s television as an educational medium and – spoiler alert! – how Elmo saved the day.

Have a great week, everyone! Rock on. xo

Leaning Out; Nineteen Weeks In

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I am at that weird point in the summer, but also in the pandemic, where I really struggle to know what day it is. The boys and I went for a fun little hike last Monday, and when I think about it, it seems like months ago. Thank god for blogs, because I have no concept if something happened in April or last week, and I find myself looking it up and being constantly surprised.

There was a worldwide Garmin outage due to hacking, and it really begs the question: if you do a physical activity, but your watch doesn’t track it, did it really happen? If you do not have a Garmin watch or similar, you might think – as I did, people, as I did, karma on every judgement every time – that such a question is ridiculous. However, millions of users, myself included, were all completely lost. Sure, there’s a global pandemic with millions sick and dying, there are terrible social injustices happening all around the world, there is massive government corruption and countries are all facing mind-boggling national debts and unemployment, small businesses are closing up while the Walmarts and Amazons are thriving. BUT WHAT ABOUT MY RUN, WILL IT BE RECORDED.

The boys were up at my parents’ for a few days, helping my dad with a few things, and my husband and I looked at each other across the table, wondering what day it was. It’s Wednesday, I said with great authority. I thought it was Thursday the whole day, he said. We stared at each other for a minute – it WAS Wednesday, but disconcerting as who really knows, time has lost all meaning and feels like a false construct – and then went back to our salads.

The boys paddling at 15 degrees and windy; they are pretty hardened to cold weather, but melt a little in warmer temperatures. Luckily, they live here.

As a digression, when my younger son was in kindergarten I often chatted with his little friend’s grandma, who cared for her granddaughter while her parents were at work. This woman was a real inspiration to me; so energetic and vibrant, and interesting to talk to. She was the woman who really pressed me to look into getting my varicose veins removed, saying that I was so young with so many years ahead of me, it was too much to go through life with pain that could be easily remedied. Longtime readers will remember that I did get them stripped; unfortunately, according to my doctor, I am a “very unusual case” as I have since developed NEW varicose veins, and I cannot have anything done with them as, well, no more veins can really be removed from my body.

ANYWAY. If you’re interested in varicose veins, by all means, go search my archives. The grandma, however, talked to me once about how one day the kids will leave home, and I would be sitting across from my husband at the table, and it would be like, “Oh, hello.”

At the time I couldn’t picture it at all; dinners were hectic and evenings were filled with reading stories and supervising baths and cutting up fruit for snacks before collapsing, exhausted, on the couch. It’s not like the kids haven’t been away before, far from it. But it occurred to me suddenly: it won’t be long until the table-set-for-two is the rule, not the exception.

Last week I finished the book Lean Out by Tara Henley, and if you haven’t read it, I really recommend it. It really resonated with me and what I’ve been thinking about these last few weeks – this whole pandemic, really. The books centres on the physical and mental health issues that stem from our culture of overwork, overscheduling, overdoing. Don’t get me wrong; I love to be busy and productive and to get things done, but there’s a limit. It’s something I have known for years: there has to be yin where there is yang. Otherwise, your body forces you to be yin; in other words, you become sick, exhausted, depleted. If you don’t take rest, your body takes it for you, and it is much less pleasant than just sitting and reading for a while.

I am writing this as my husband has been working nonstop, every single day since June 29, evenings, weekends, holidays. He’s on a big project and there is an end in sight, but it is making me nervous in terms of health. Hoo boy. Anyway, during this whole month – and the whole pandemic – we have gone for walks every single day and I think that’s the yin that’s going to save us all. I’ve watched the lawns and gardens in the neighbourhood go from snow covered to bleak to tiny-signs-of-life to full blown flowers and grass. One garden in particular is my favourite to look at, owing to the gorgeous flowers and also their enormous collection of garden gnomes and tchotchkes. I call it the Happy Yard, with all the smiling ceramic ladybugs and what have you.

My own garden is in full swing; the roses are as late as they have ever been, and – perhaps owing to the super-early frost and snow last year – none of the old wood greened up, so I had to prune it all back. IN JULY.

But this week, the first of the roses started blooming, and it felt like a little breath of hope.

Pandemic Reading

I was out running errands when I got a text from my husband to let me know the library had called, and that one of my holds was ready for pickup. He followed up that text with this: Stop ordering books. I don’t know why he said that.

So I have a few things to read. Anyway, I AM making my way through the pile; I read two other books in addition to Lean Out this week.

This is about the woman who wrote The Velveteen Rabbit and her child prodigy daughter, Pamela. Pamela was a famous artist at a young age, and like most geniuses, suffered mental illness. Probably this was exacerbated by the pressure she was under thanks to her exploitative dickwad of a father.

This book was interesting and disturbing; it was well done but I don’t know that I’d across-the-board recommend it. If you like bizarre internet stalker-type books, and very well done and interesting twists, this is for you.

Have a beautiful week, friends. It’s the last week of July! Just a reminder for those of you who – like me – are completely messed up in terms of time. xo