Category Archives: Testosterone-y

Brass Monkey, that funky monkey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Non-manky but Reynaud’s purple.

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

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

Sweater Discovery

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

It has pockets!

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

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

Cilantro

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

Winter Fashion

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

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

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

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

We Will Assimilate You

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It feels like, in this stage of life, that every single week we think next week things will slow down over and over until we drop dead from exhaustion, but I am optimistic that this week, THIS VERY WEEK, things will indeed slow down.

Well, maybe. At the very least, it is the last week of school – and for me, work – before a few weeks off, and those weeks off will be very welcome and – hopefully – slow. I have big plans to watch movies and read books, to drink coffee with almond Bailey’s in it, and to recruit my husband in to coming with me to help with what grocery shopping will need to be done. I am strong, invincible woman, but grocery shopping – particularly in the winter, particularly when shopping for people who WILL NOT STOP EATING – is physically exhausting.

I go weekly to Superstore, and bi-weekly to Costco, and because Wednesday is my designated Errand Day, those two chores happen on the same day every two weeks. Last Wednesday it started to snow, huge fluffy thick flakes, and I had to really brace myself for the Epic Grocery Day. If you’ve ever pushed a giant cart full to the brim with groceries through a snowy, unplowed parking lot, not once but twice in a two-hour span, you will understand how physically depleted I was by the time I pulled into my garage. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have gone for a 6.5 km run BEFORE doing that, but how was I to know it would start snowing immediately before heading out for Epic Grocery Day? I am not a meteorologist.

Pushing the cart aside, the biggest problem with grocery shopping during the day is that no one is home to help unload the car and put things away; it took a solid 50 minutes of non-stop work to do this. Who needs to go to the gym when you can just provide food for teenage boys?

Oh, the life of a domestic goddess. Last Friday I was having coffee with my friend Janet (HI JANET) when I noticed that the clasp of my beloved Christmas bracelet had come undone, and my little Christmas tree was missing. I checked my clothes, the coffee shop, the car…and then came to the sad conclusion that it was gone forever, probably lost in the snow. I taught my class and sadly came home; I washed the dishes in the sink and when I took the dish gloves off there was a little clunk on the floor – my Christmas tree! Of course! I had washed the dishes immediately before leaving the house, because apparently washing dishes is a huge part of my life, and the clasp must have come undone then. I was so thankful that the little tree didn’t go down the drain, or that more charms didn’t fall off the bracelet.

Luckily the clasp didn’t come undone when I was out mailing a card. You know the scene from When Harry Met Sally, when Sally is mailing a pile of letters and checks the chute after every single one? That’s me to a tee, and my husband always laughs at me. “It’s on a slant, of course the letter is going to go down into the box.” Well. WELL. I will tell you that the following events vindicated me forever. When I went to mail the card, I opened the chute to see at least six envelopes sitting there. Someone didn’t check! The mailbox was very full, which was preventing the envelopes from going down into the mailbox, and so I did my best to force them down, hoping I wasn’t crushing important things like photos or anything. It was crammed full, and so my entire arm was in the mailbox, trying to coax the envelopes down. I hoped no one was watching me, thinking I was committing mail fraud or theft. I briefly remembered the scene in The Simpsons where Homer gets his arm stuck in the pop machine, and there is discussion of amputation, when it is revealed that the reason his arm is stuck is because he will not let go of the can of pop. What if my arm gets stuck in this mailbox. Will I have to be rescued. If so, will the fire department arrive. If so, is it worth getting my arm stuck.

Speaking of pop machines, when I was at Costco for my Epic Grocery Day, I noticed that the pop machines were all equipped with credit card readers. Does no one carry change anymore? What an age we live in.

It was another weekend of treat-making to wrap up the season. I am now DONE. I think. There was a party at the studio and so I made cupcakes:

Because it was a yoga party, I wanted the cupcakes to be vegan. In the past I’ve used coconut oil to make vegan frosting, but it is not exactly ideal. For one thing, it either seizes or melts, and there is always a residual coconut taste, unless I use refined coconut oil, in which the taste is too bland. So, I bought a hippie vegan butter (or, “butter”) and I will tell you: I had my doubts. For one thing, after I had left it on the counter, as I would with regular butter, it was so soft that I had to scrape it out of its wrapping. It also tasted a lot like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. But I am here to tell you that it was the absolute best for frosting. I didn’t have to add any “milk,” it whipped up into perfect creaminess, and it set up nicely. It was much easier to work with than real butter, and much better tasting than coconut oil frosting, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter taste aside. I used the remainder of the decimated candy canes to make it festive.

I baked 115 gingerbread men on Thursday for Friday decorating with the boys, and it went exactly as expected.

Sometimes it’s better not to ask questions, you know?

A hammer and sickle. Note the cookie is broken, “just like Communism.” Symbolism in gingerbread decorating.

This is “Okay Boomer” cookie, which the boys say to each other, and also to me. “I’m not a Boomer!” I’ll say, to which they respond “Okay Boomer.”

Well, I think we can all read what that one says.

Self explanatory.

My army of gingerbread men. I would like everyone to note that a) mine are the only ones that actually get eaten, as no one can stand eating as much artificial icing as the boys put on their cookies, and b) I am a machine. Of the 115 cookies, the vast majority are exactly like this. We will assimilate you.

Here’s to a – maybe? – slower, quieter week. Only one week until Christmas Eve! May your days be merry and bright, friends, and cookie-filled too. xo

He just doesn’t know his own strength

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The past few days have seen me unusually irritated and agitated about things that would not normally irritate or agitate me. I’ve been having feelings of being completely overwhelmed, and no amount of list-making has assuaged those feelings. Is it this time of year? Have I over-extended myself? Am I having a breakdown? All of those questions and more were answered when my phone buzzed with a notification that it is Almost That Time Of The Month Again! Oh! Well. I’m glad my phone knows what’s what.

Honestly, I feel like everything would be at a normal level of busyness, but for all the little things that keep popping up. Call vet to refill Barkley’s eye drops. Figure out when I can get the boys in for their dental checkups at the new, non-pediatric-but-still-convenient dentist. Take Barkley to the groomer. Reschedule last week’s wax appointment. Make an appointment with our (very hot, I’m serious, this guy is a looker) plumber to come and look at our thermostat, since the furnace is coming on but not always to the right temperature.

This last one almost broke me. Who wants to find a free afternoon to wait at home for someone to come and look at the thermostat? Well, as I said, at least he’s nice to look at, and besides, I can get a start on my gingerbread men.

My email just popped up with an article entitled Why You’re Eating The Wrong Cinnamon and I am NOT clicking on that.

Even without the furnace/ dog/ dental scheduling, the last week has been a whirlwind of activity and treat-making and teaching and just generally scurrying around. I’ve been packaging up treats for my students and playing tetris with my downstairs fridge:

Me: it will be fine once I roast the cauliflower, there will be room in the fridge.

Oops.

I spent much of Sunday making gingersnaps:

More decorative tins!

I had left the candy canes for my younger son to crush, in order for me to make peppermint bark. I wanted to have the candy cane crushing completed by Monday, so I could package them up in little bags for a different group of students. My son got out the rubber mallet and the cutting board, and asked me just how crushed I wanted them to be. Chunks? Little pieces? Decimate them! I said to him in my Fun Mom voice.

One thing you should know about my younger son is that he Follows Directions. Remember in Game of Thrones when Sam cures Jorah of greyscale, and when asked about it he said that he read the instructions in some ancient manuscript and then followed those instructions? If only more people could be like that. It is my regret that Sam was not Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, because with that attitude, he should have been. Anyway, that is my son to a tee. He is the king of step-by-step directions, and you never have to tell him something twice. I probably should have kept this in mind when I told him I wanted the candy canes decimated.

He presented me with three bags of candy cane POWDER. Quite honestly that works really well in bark, as there are fewer tooth-chipping hunks of peppermint candy. There are a few small chunks in there too, as I had also said “a few small pieces would be nice.” As you can see:

But mostly, it’s powder.

In addition to decimating the candy canes, he also decimated my cutting board. It cracked into thirds. I can’t be mad about it, though, because he was just following directions. He is much less remorseful about the loss of my cutting board than he is impressed with his own sheer brute strength. Well, he does work out a lot, and YET I feel that perhaps a little less vigor would have yielded similar, but non-cutting-board-destroying results. I agreed with him that, Hulk-like, he just doesn’t know his own strength, while duct-taping together the cutting board for use next year. No sense breaking another cutting board next Christmas.

I went to Canadian Tire to buy a new one, and for those of you who are not Canadian, CT is one of our big national brands. Not only does it sell tires and other automobile-related things, but it also has a garden centre, household items, paint, kitchenware, and sporting goods, as well as all things Christmas-related. It is one of those stores that I love – because it frequently has incredibly good sales – and also hate, because the store itself is often a disorganized jumble. I ended up with a cutting board that was on sale for half-price, which I didn’t know until I went to pay, and if I HAD known, I probably would have bought two. Not that I’m complaining.

Before my CT trip, I put gas in the car and, due to my inability to see out the back window, washed it. There was no snow in the forecast, I swear, I checked my weather app twice, but not 30 minutes after washing the car, the snow started to fall and continued for the entire day. Did I curse the city? Possibly. The entire day, I kept looking at my weather app, which said “cloudy” but at no time did it call for snow, even when the snow was coming down. My Monday afternoon students, after I related this story, thought that perhaps the rest of the city was completely dry and that a snow cloud was just following me around, like a character in Winnie the Pooh. The long and short of it is that I had a clean car for about 30 minutes, and now I can’t see out the back window again.

Well, it’s only two weeks until Christmas, but my dear, dear, dear friend and neighbour (HI TARYN) surprised me with this beautiful gift:

Isn’t it gorgeous? I love it so much.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week; it can be stressful this time of year (THE FURNACE) but hopefully you are experiencing some joys and beauty of the season. xo

I took the restrictor plate off the Red Dragon; this thing’s not exactly street legal *

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This morning, a complete stranger gave me a very kind compliment, right out of the blue. It brightened up my already-pretty-bright morning, and I’ve been smiling all day, thinking about it. I’m a person who loves to randomly compliment people, from people I love to people I’ve never met. If you think something nice, why not say it? There is basically no downside to it. I say “basically” because although I cannot think of a time when I’ve been met with a cold shoulder after saying something kind, I’m sure those things happen. However, the risk is much smaller than the reward: go for it!

On that note, something I am very thankful for is YOU, the reader. I’ve been writing this blog for – wait for it – eleven years now, and some of you have been with me since the beginning! That’s pretty spectacular, and so are you.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, or, if you’re not Canadian, a lovely regular weekend. We spent it at my mother-in-laws’ place; we boarded Barkley and flew out, and I am so glad we did for a number of reasons, the biggest one being this guy:

That bad boy walked right past our front window and ambled down into the grape rows. Eeeee. Less alarmingly, we also saw a herd of deer and a bobcat, heading in exactly the same pathway, ostensibly to go get water below the vineyard. I felt like we were in a reality nature show, albeit one in which I looked around every time I left the house.

Since we flew, we rented a car, and I think the rental company profiled my husband as a divorced, middle-aged white man.

Two out of three isn’t bad, I suppose. Hilariously, the radio station was tuned to the local classic rock station and the very first song, the very first one, was Raise a Little Hell, followed by Don’t Fear the Reaper. All that was missing was Whitesnake, which I kept hoping to hear all weekend but alas. You cannot have everything in this life.

We had a nice weekend and I read this incredible, funny, and insightful book:

It is so rare that a trilogy gets better with every subsequent book, but the Rosie one does. I highly recommend it.

We got home on Monday and it’s been a slog ever since, a slog of classes and laundry and groceries and trying to get on top of every little thing. There are so many details in life, isn’t there? For example, the kids no longer want to go to the pediatric dentist – which, well. The tiny purple chairs hardly hold them anymore and it is a bit ridiculous, silently getting cleanings while mass hysteria reigns in the other tiny purple chairs. However, the pediatric dentist is the most conveniently located of all, literally across the street from the high school. After asking for recommendations in that building in the community Facebook page, I am faced with many recommendations, only one actually in that same professional building. My question also sparked a small argument about the thievery or otherwise of a certain local dentist. Ah, community Facebook pages. Never change.

I had no classes to teach today so along with my usual Wednesday errands, the researching of possible dentists, ordering eye drops for the dog, wondering about the Winter Boot Situation, and paying numerous school fees and bills, I decided to wash my duvet cover. Washing the duvet covers and blankets is something that is done seasonally in this house, but today I thought I’d go for the glory and wash the actual duvet as well.

Why do we always make life difficult for ourselves? Why would I think this is a good idea? We bought this washing machine SPECIFICALLY because it claimed to be able to Handle A King Sized Comforter, but it really is blatantly untrue, and the more often I could remember that, the better my life would be. After being stalled out three times on the spin cycle, due to An Unbalanced Load – An Unbalanced Load, the title of my memoir – I finally gave up and put the very wet duvet in the dryer, where it spent three HOURS being dried, even after turning it and rearranging it every twenty minutes. I think next time it would be easier to just buy a new duvet. Or, more rationally, to take it to a laundromat. BUT I DON’T WANT TO.

I seem to have some kind of disorder in which if I have more than an hour of time unaccounted for I feel the need to fill it with ridiculous things, like washing a king-sized duvet. This is something that probably could have waited, but until when? If not now, when? In any case, I am going to have a nice, fluffy, clean duvet by the time the day is over. I just hope it will be nice, fluffy, clean, and DRY.

On the positive side, there are only five more days until this ridiculously stupid election is OVER. My husband and I voted in the advance polls, and I was confused to see a candidate with the party “M.L.” I thought and thought, and couldn’t figure it out. What is the M.L. party? I asked my kids who are, of course, studying it in school and my older son gleefully answered that it was, even more ridiculously, the Marxist-Leninist party. Well! There was also a Libertarian candidate so I suppose they balance each other out.

My husband always asks one of the kids to label his bottles of shampoo and conditioner, so he doesn’t make the tragic mistake of conditioning first, I guess.

Speaking of hair products, I’ve been using the Mark Anthony ones for a while now, and may I suggest the Bamboo Volumizing line for those of you with similarly fine hair? It’s a miracle product:

My hair stayed like that all day! Plus, I have to mention my sweater, which my husband gave to me as a present and which I ADORE, although I tend to get the teeniest bit nervous with light-coloured anything. Well, that’s what aprons are for!

* If you know that quote, I salute you! Enjoy the rest of the week, lovelies. xoxo

To grow out my hair or not grow out my hair, that is the question.

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I love being a woman, make no mistake about it, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a man. I know, objectively, that men do feel concern about their appearances, just like the rest of us. I’m sure men harbour feelings of dissatisfaction with their looks; perhaps they look ruefully in the mirror, noticing thickening waists or thinning hair. But one thing I know for sure is that they do not spend a week every four to ten weeks wondering if they are getting their period or if they are as hideous as they think they are.

It’s just not fair, is it? As if it is not enough that we spend that week bloated and exhausted, irritable and emotional, but we also apparently develop vision issues that cause us to look in the mirror with self-loathing, or, at the very least, Extreme Dissatisfaction. If you polled ten million women on the week before their periods, and asked them to rate on a scale of one to ten their satisfaction with their appearance, only one woman would say Very Satisfied, and that woman would be Giselle Bundchen. The rest of us would oscillate between Somewhat Dissatisfied and I Hate Everything Especially My Stupid Hair.

As a note, I do NOT Hate My Hair. In fact, as my layers have grown out over the past ten months, I have felt Very Satisfied with my hair, for the first time ever. My hair therapist is a brilliant woman who has made this Life Journey with me not only painless, but very pleasant. However. HOWEVER. This past week – pre-ladies’-holidays – I have going back and forth in my mind about – get ready – possibly growing my hair long. Or longer. You would not believe the amount of brain power and energy I have put into trying to answer the question Should I grow my hair longer or should I keep it this length? I feel like I could put this to a team of debaters at the high school. Resolved: Nicole’s Hair Should Grow Another Three Inches.

It’s not like the consequences are particularly dire either way. Intellectually I know that a) I like it this length, and so if I left it like this I would be happy, b) if I grew it longer I might like it like that too and as an added benefit, would require fewer bobby pins to put it in a bun, and c) if I grew it out longer and I DIDN’T like it, I could have it cut back to this length. In all cases, the end result is Happiness and Being Very Satisfied. And yet it feels like a Major Life Decision That Will Affect Everything And Possibly Have Disastrous Results. For the amount of thought I’ve been putting into this, oscillating back and forth between Grow Longer and Status Quo, I could have penned the Great Canadian Novel, written a mathematical proof for game theory from first principles, and finished an entire book of Sudoko puzzles.

I probably would even have energy left over to figure out how to change traffic behaviour around school zones, which would be the most complicated thing of all. I breathed a sigh of relief when I no longer had children at the elementary school; people would pop out from between parked cars or buses, kids in tow, to jaywalk right through traffic to get to school, rather than use the clearly marked, patrolled crosswalk less than twenty metres away. Cars would stop in bus zones or do u-turns in the middle of traffic, to much honking and distress. Harried drivers would speed through said marked, patrolled crosswalks nearly missing pedestrians and my children, who were school patrols. At least, I thought, when I got to junior high things would improve. Reader, they did not. The junior high is on a hill and there are still people parking in bus zones and doing u-turns, but on the hill it is so much worse. A friend witnessed one woman taking a u-turn in the middle of winter and then losing traction, she slid sideways down the hill, narrowly missing several parked cars before hitting a snowbank, which was thankfully high enough to protect the people on the sidewalk. Not to mention that school starts at 7:50, and so it is dark much of the year. There’s nothing like wondering if a kid dressed all in black is going to pop out in front of you as you careen down an icy hill.

Now that my older son is in high school, the only real hazard appears to be the teens themselves, travelling in herds across the street, heads down, looking at their phones. I seem to have more patience for them than I do the weirdly illegal driving maneuvers.

Speaking of sons, the birthday party on the weekend was a huge success. All of his friends are really great kids and they all seemed to have a good time. I find it much easier to have a houseful of teen boys than younger kids, that’s for sure. At one point they all headed to 7-11 for Slurpees and I could have really done without the information that there were more shopping cart races, and I could have REALLY done without one of my sons showing me a VIDEO they had taken of said races. I had to do some deep breathing, thoughts of concussions and broken teeth and everything else in between going through my head. Om shanti. There are only so many times you can bring up CONCUSSIONS and BRAIN INJURY and WE SPENT MANY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON THOSE TEETH AND IF YOU BREAK THEM I AM GOING TO BE VERY UPSET.

That reminds me of when I was just a sweet young thing at the bar, and a friend of my then-boyfriend was dancing with a very attractive girl. This friend ended up being punched in the mouth by that girl’s boyfriend, and as a result, he lost one of his front teeth. Being twenty-one and toothless was bad enough, but this guy had braces in his teens, so imagine how his poor mother, a single mom who would have scrimped to pay for braces, must have felt. In a small-world coincidence, I ran into this guy only a few years ago, at junior high orientation night. He had a full smile so I guess the tooth implant worked out in the long run.

My main activity this weekend – other than post-party stress about shopping cart races and extreme relief that no kids were concussed and/ or left toothless – was baking. I baked cupcakes for the party and then a fancy layer cake with strawberry filling and chocolate ganache for his actual birthday dinner. They turned out well!

Hope your week is just as sweet as birthday cake, friends. xo

Girl’s Blouse and the Forward March of Time

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I was walking the dog the other day when I ran into one of the young neighbour girls. She’s the youngest of three and the last to fly the nest; she told me that she was headed to university in Ottawa at the end of the month. I cannot even begin to tell you how unexpectedly this information affected me. I teared up as I told my husband about it. I’ve know her since she was a BABY, I said tearfully, ALL of their girls are gone now. GONE. I’m pretty sure I’m projecting my feelings about fleeting time, empty nests, and the general preciousness of life on this unsuspecting 18 year old.

All of which is to say: can you even BELIEVE it’s August 9? August is my month to cling to the last vestiges of summer, such as it is, even while some of the leaves are starting to change and I’m organizing my thoughts as to what we need in terms of school supplies and pants that actually fit the boys, the boys being in that odd teenage stage where they are tall and skinny and good luck finding 29/34 jeans in any store.

August is also my month to realize that I’ve gained weight, probably due to the fact that we always take a trip to see my mother-in-law at the end of July. What can I say, booze. This happens every August, but it was a bit shocking to see that I’ve put on seven pounds since the end of June. I’m HOPING some of that was water retention, but the long and the short of it is that it’s time to cut back on the boozy coolers.

Seven pounds in a month is one thing, but I have been very active, and so it feels a bit like a slap in the face. I guess the old adage you can’t outrun a bad diet is very true, but still. You especially can’t outrun a bad liquid diet, but hey. Needs must.

We all hiked up Big White on our trip, which is over 11 kilometres and 500 metres of elevation. I was impressed with the kids’ endurance level and also happy that my hip was fine with it.

“Thoughtful Instagram pose”

This week since we’ve been back has been a strange combination of Back To Routine and Fun Activities, which is giving me an odd, time-warp kind of feeling. Yesterday my friend and I took the boys to the mountains for a short hike; apparently it was too short as they complained that it wasn’t enough of a challenge. Well, game on, boys. I guess from now on it’s all endurance all the time. The hike was pretty though.

Tuesday I went back to teaching, my husband went out of town on business, and the boys went to a sleepover birthday party. Ten years ago I would have committed any number of criminal activities in order to have an evening to myself, but now it just feels kind of dull. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed making a special dinner just for myself – Greek salad and pita on a Tuesday! – but while I was reading in complete silence I realized I miss the dull-roar noise level of our house. At any given time a) my younger son is practicing drums, b) my older son is playing Iron Man on his electric guitar with the amp up high, c) the kids are talking in their Outside Voices, d) my husband is talking in his Regular Voice, and e) my husband is listening to Bloomberg and/ or Sport Centre. It was pretty quiet with just me and Barkley. I spent my evening reading, with a “clarifying and polishing” face mask and my feet swathed in cotton socks to keep the lotion on. Hashtag: living the glamourous life.

The cut of those socks remind me so much of my grandma and her penchant for Isotoner slippers. It makes me miss her so much. I can just picture her in her kitchen, wearing light-blue Isotoner slippers, capri pants, and a flowered blouse.

Speaking of blouses, the boys and I have been re-watching all six seasons of Downton Abbey in preparation for the new movie coming in September. Although, knowing me, we will see the movie when it comes out on Netflix. Anyway, we all love Downton, probably because of the terrible soap-opera story lines and fluctuating awfulness/ brilliance of the characters. I mean, what is UP with how terrible Lord Grantham is in seasons 3-4? Won’t someone PLEASE give Lady Edith a little bit of support for once in her whole pathetic life? How many deaths can be attributed to Bates, really? What does all this have to do with blouses? Well, some of the old-timey British sayings are just too awesome to not incorporate into daily conversation. “I jolly well WILL!” “Splendid!” “Oh, crikey.” But the very best line comes from good old Murderer Bates himself, when chiding Jimmy for over-reacting about Thomas’ moves. “Why are you being such a big girl’s blouse about it?” Everyone in our house uses the term Girl’s Blouse several times a day now, as it is possibly the greatest semi-insult ever. One only needs complain about the slightest thing to be immediately named a Girl’s Blouse.

Boy: I’m a little tired today.

Any other member of the family: Stop being such a big girl’s blouse about it.

My husband: I have a lot of meetings today.

Me: Why do you have to be such a girl’s blouse?

And so on.

The city, as if to boost everyone’s self-esteem from being constantly referred to as a random article of women’s clothing, has put up signs everywhere with motivational sayings on them. “You can do it!” I’ll see as I’m driving down the freeway. “You made a difference today!” I’ll see posted as I’m coming out of the Superstore parking lot. I like the idea behind it but I’m puzzled as to where they came from. It’s like the world is conspiring to make us feel good about ourselves, which is lovely. I was unwrapping a vitamin C drop and noticed that it, also, is concerned about my self-esteem. “Don’t give up!” it told me. “March forward!” Well, crikey. I jolly well WILL march forward, thank you very much. But not too quickly; August is speeding away as it is.

Happy Friday everyone, xo.