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Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Festively Crazy Edition

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Do you have a Buy Nothing group in your neighbourhood? I do, and it’s really a great thing: people post items that they want to get rid of, and also items – and sometimes acts of service – that they need. I have been able to re-home many items from my house in this way, and it makes me happy to think that someone local is using our outgrown clothes and boots, old towels, and bought-on-a-whim-but-never-used toiletries.

Some of the things gifted on the site are kind of bizarre – partially used salad dressing, for example, expired coconut milk – but hey, no judgement here, the point is to keep things out of the landfill, and almost everything that goes on the site is snapped up.

On my most recent Organization Spree Because There Are So Many People Home All The Time In This Small House, I pulled a big Rubbermaid bin from a closet downstairs. The bins below it were filled with various knitted objects from my mother-in-law, and a quilt my grandmother had made for me as a child, and the bins above it were filled with spare blankets for winter.

You might think that the bin in question would also be filled with similar items, but you would be wrong. It was filled to the brim with gift bags.

I have another box, handily residing on a shelf, that I store gift bags in, and so I did not even realize I have saved every gift bag from every gift I have ever been given. I mean, this bin had gift bags that I remember getting at my baby shower, my baby shower being held in May 2004.

I also was made to realize that every year I buy packages containing hundreds – hundreds! – of Christmas gift tags, and then only partially use the package as I don’t, obviously, give hundreds of gifts annually. In other words, I had stacks and stacks of partially used packages of gift tags. I may never have to buy gift tags again. When I die, my grandchildren will be cleaning out my apartment and will wonder why I have so many gift tags.

Also found: many ribbons, partially empty boxes of cards, and bags of Easter grass.

Thank god for the Buy Nothing group, is all I can say. Two nice ladies took the bags – one specifically taking dozens of wine gift bags, guess what people like to give me – and both commented, after picking them up from my front step, that that was more than they expected. THEY’RE YOURS NOW, LADIES. Enjoy the monkey paws.

My vow to not buy gift tags did not extend to actual gift WRAP because, although I knew, I knew in my heart that I had several rolls of Christmas wrap at home, I still bought a Costco roll on my last trip. We all know how long those rolls last. I guess my grandchildren will also be clearing Christmas paper out of my apartment and thinking that Grandma was Festively Crazy.

I am Festively Crazy! And why not. Here we are, the darkest month of the year, the darkest year of the century/ millennium/ dear god let’s HOPE it’s the darkest year, and, as you know, I’m Feeling Festive.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Festively Crazy Edition

Gnome Sweet Gnome

Back in mid-November, I noticed this guy in my neighbourhood.

Cute, right? Then, suddenly, he started multiplying and I was seeing this sweet greenery gnome everywhere around the neighbourhood. Sometimes I would see three or four houses in a row with gnomes on their front steps or gardens. I finally saw a gnome owner – a gnowner, if you will – and she told me that a local nursery was selling kits and giving webinars to Make Your Own Gnome. Right there I knew it was a non-starter for me. I am the least crafty person I know, and if I was to try this project – which the woman said “was tricky in parts” – it would end with a pile of shredded greenery, and me dissolved in a puddle of tears. I did look on the nursery’s website, and the kits themselves were $80, which seemed like a lot to spend for a decoration that would only last one season (I’m half Scottish), and also for something that I would surely destroy accidentally.

This all doesn’t stop me from admiring each and every gnome on my daily walks, nor did it stop me from talking to my husband about the gnomes. Look at how cute they are, I love gnomes, I especially love the kind of gnomes that have faces like that, I wish I had a gnome.

Look what arrived on the weekend!

Dreams do come true! I am now officially a gnowner, without the tears and shredded greenery.

Pulling The Ferrari Out Of The Garage

My friend Liv (HI LIV) uses that term for bringing out the good china, and although I have a full set of Lavender Rose Royal Albert china that was my grandma’s, I rarely use it. It generally comes out for fancy Christmas coffee and treats with the girls, which is obviously not going to happen this year. I do not feel like going through the trouble of bringing out the Lavender Rose for the guys, who do not now and never will appreciate it. However! Our Sunday night desserts have been a variety of the Christmas treats and baking I’ve been doing, which is a perfect opportunity to bring out the Christmas Spode platters.

So many trees.

I love Spode; the platters hide in plain sight year-round. This bowl usually houses decorative balls with Chinese writing, but at Christmas gets filled with pine cones I collected years ago, from my in-laws’, my husband’s childhood home.

Party For One, A Festive Kitchen Party

If you’re going to spend a lot of time at home, and in the kitchen, may I suggest festive tea towels? You can see the Spode one above, but I have a wide variety, almost exclusively purchased post-Christmas at huge discounts (Scottish, again).

I use the wine-themed ones only on Fridays and Saturdays as a celebratory reminder.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside Bum Warmers

FRILUFTSLIV! I know I’ve talked before about My Cozy Buns, the local woman who repurposes old sweaters and makes them into these adorable skirt-like bum warmers, but I do not think I can talk too much about them. I mean. Honestly. How much cuter of an idea can you get? Plus, recycling, upcycling, keeping warm in the winter, looking cute, and friluftsliv! I am normally an all-black-or-at-most-very-neutral colour person, but I saw this set – which comes with a matching headband, not shown – and it was just the perfect pop of festive colour without making me feel weird and conspicuous.

Please note that I am only coatless to take this photo, I immediately layered up afterwards.

Don’t Throw Me Down, Clark

My friend Chloe (HI CHLOE) sent me this coaster last Christmas (she also gave me her heart, but I gave it away) (I hope this year she gives it to someone special) and it makes me smile every time I look at it, which is often.

When this pandemic started, I vowed to write a monthly Favourite Things, and it has really helped me to focus on the positive. I think I’ll keep it up! So tell me, what are your favourite things lately? They don’t have to be festive (but I am here for the festivity!). xo

Everything Is Fine; Thirty-Eight Weeks In

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The first week of at-home schooling has been fine. So much better – oh my god, SO MUCH – than in the spring. For one thing, we finally bought my older son a laptop – my younger son has had one since seventh grade – and that right there was worth the price, times one thousand. Both boys can now work in their rooms, as opposed to my older son working on our desktop – the same desktop on which I am writing right this very moment – and my husband cobbling together a stand desk in our bedroom from an aerobics step and an upside-down Rubbermaid container.

Does that sound weird? It is weird. My husband still has to use this “stand desk” for the two hours a week that I’m teaching yoga from home, but mostly he is at the desk with his work laptop. Allow me to illustrate.

The stand desk.

Welcome to our “home office!” It’s a desk, right beside the gaming area and also home gym, hello open concept.

Gaming area is also attached to my library and the cardio machines (god I love those machines).

Cardio area, where I can watch the boys gaming if I want to be confused as to what they are doing. Anyone want to talk about Peloton with me? I feel like I’ve happily joined a sweaty cult.

The weight area, also the place where I teach zoom yoga from home.

IPad setup for zoom yoga, beside the laundry area.

Not one but TWO drum kits, one acoustic and one electric, the electric one being used any time someone actually has to hear anything else in the house. Not that I’m complaining! I love listening to my son drum. He’s learning In The Air Tonight and I have been waiting for that moment all my life.

Guitar cases and also a small peek into the storage/ pantry room.

The acquisition of the new laptop has made an enormous difference in our domestic harmony; my husband takes over the basement during working hours – except when I’m teaching – and the boys are in their rooms. The school is, of course, so much better equipped to handle at-home learning and although some of their option courses are a little strange to take online – mechanics, for example, and sports performance, both of which my younger son is in – mostly it’s fine. It’s fine! It’s fine.

When my community centre classes went online a few weeks ago (WAS it a few weeks ago, time has lost all meaning) I was given the option of teaching from home or teaching at the completely empty community centre, and I chose the latter because OUTING.

Speaking of outings, last week I took a deep breath and decided to do One More Costco Run, The Last Until After Christmas on my usual grocery shopping day. When I do Costco and Superstore on the same day, it typically means that, even at top efficiency, Grocery Shopping And Putting Away The Groceries is, at minimum, three hours from start to finish. I chugged a green smoothie, popped my vitamins, drank a pot of coffee, and I was ready.

I was…surprised. If you need to shop at Costco in December, may I suggest going the week AFTER lockdown restrictions are announced? I can only assume that the entire city was in Panic Buying Mode the week previous, and now have no room left in their pantries and freezers. The parking lot was so quiet that I actually looked at my watch, phone, AND the car clock to ensure that I was here at a normal time, and not, you know, in the middle of the night. Time has lost all meaning. The store was as quiet as it’s ever been, it was quiet for Pre-Pandemic Times. In December. Carpe diem, I shopped the hell out of that store and then zipped over to Superstore, where it was also eerily quiet. Everything is fine. It’s fine.

Usually on Wednesdays, after my grocery shop, I look with great satisfaction at the fridge and pantry, thinking look at all this beautiful produce, look at this delicious healthy food, look at all these ingredients with which to prepare all the meals which I have lovingly planned out. This motherly feeling of accomplishment and abundance can last up to five days, at which point I look in the fridge and wonder what happened to all the grapes, they were meant for school snacks, and what kind of ravenous garbage monsters do I live with. This is a similar feeling to that which I get 24 to 36 hours after I lovingly bake muffins or snack loaf so that it comes out of the oven just before the boys get home from school, greeting them with scrumptious scents and warm baking, when I look at the tin and see nothing but crumbs or perhaps an errant chocolate chip.

This week was different.

It was only when I finished rearranging the fridges, freezers, pantry, and cupboards to make room for my grocery acquisitions that I looked around and thought okay, this is getting weird now. I have crossed the line from I’m just being prepared to I think I might be a crazy person. I would not blame you for looking askance at me and my forty kilograms of flour, three Costco-sized bags of chocolate chips, five crunchy peanut butters, five jars of salsa, and four and a half cases of almond milk.

What I’m saying is, I don’t need to buy staples for a while.

I need to remind myself, apparently, that the supply chain is strong and vigorous, and that there IS NO SHORTAGE OF ANYTHING AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. Even my Just Nuts Crunchy Peanut Butter is, after many weeks, back in stock. JUST CALM DOWN, NICOLE. Anyway, my goal for the next month is to just buy produce and other perishables and work my way down through my massive stock of staples. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

Case in point: I was making tacos, and there was only one shell in the box in the kitchen. I wrote taco shells on my grocery list and went downstairs to fetch my spare box in the pantry. Except there were THREE spare boxes. It was with great strength of will that I crossed taco shells off my list. THERE IS NO TACO SHORTAGE.

This pandemic is messing with my mental state in many ways.

It doesn’t, for example, take a PhD in psychology to see what’s REALLY going on with my recent obsession with all the shoes and boots in this house, and the purchase of several shoe and boot racks, and the subsequent reorganization of all the closets in which shoes and boots reside. If someone was tracking my movements and purchases, they might see that this recent project was positively correlated with the recent school shutdown and the subsequent result that Everyone Is Home All The Time.

Side note: most of the footwear is mine, and all of it Sparks Joy, so not one pair has been purged, but they are all very neatly organized on one of the five shoe/ boot racks purchased in the last couple of weeks (has it been a couple of weeks? Time has lost all meaning.). Although, I should mention that when a shoe rack advertises that it “holds nine pair” that does not account for the fact that my younger son has size twelve feet and therefore any rack with his shoes on it yields a much different result. It’s fine. It’s all fine.

Everything is fine, and if anyone needs pantry staples, I’m your huckleberry.

Pandemic Reading

This was so interesting; a very comprehensive study about the “Spanish” flu (a misnomer, the pandemic actually started at an army training camp in Kansas, and from there travelled to France during the latter months of the war, but since Spain was neutral and did not censor its media, it was assumed that the flu was of Spanish origin). This discussed health implications, economic implications, how the pandemic became a global one, the rise of public health care, and how the war was affected by soldiers falling ill in the trenches. Absolutely fascinating. Am I recommending it to you? I don’t know. I would absolutely NOT have been open to reading it six months ago, but I was in the right stage to do so now.

Photo from 1920, 100 years ago!

This was published in 2017, so it’s interesting to see the “future pandemic” scientific protocols, when we are living it.

This was SO good, thanks to Allison (HI ALLISON) for the long-ago recommendation. I am not telling you one single thing about it because I want you to be as surprised as I was.

My Christmas baking this week consisted of sugar cookies and peanut butter truffles. Melt together 2 cups peanut butter and 1/4 cup refined coconut oil. Add some vanilla (I freestyle, probably 1-2 tsp) and 2 cups icing sugar. Chill until able to work into balls, at which point the balls go on wax paper-lined cookie sheets in the freezer. Melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with 1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil, dip the balls in the mixture, and freeze again. Easy peasy.

EVERYTHING IS FINE, WE HAVE BAKING. It’s fine. xo

Lockdown, Redux; Thirty-Seven Weeks In

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Double Up The D

I am a person who feels very strongly about the benefits of various vitamins and dietary supplements, and if you are a person who, like my dad, thinks that AT BEST such items are useless and a waste of money, not to worry. I am not going to try to sway you to the side of tumeric supplements and the various vegan glucosamine options available to you. I am, however, going to talk about Vitamin D.

I am not a medical professional or being paid by Big Vitamin, but I want to encourage you all – especially those of us in the Great White North – to double your Vitamin D intake. I have long been a believer in Vitamin D, and not just for the bone growth and development that it is officially touted for. I think Vitamin D plays a significant role in mood stability and also immunity. Current research shows a correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and the more severe of the Covid symptoms for those who contract it, and I feel vindicated.

Although, technically, I think that a Vitamin D deficiency is probably present in most severe cases of viral and bacterial illness, not just Covid, but let’s stay on trend here.

We all take a multivitamin in the Boyhouse, which contains 400 IU of Vitamin D, but that is, in my non-medical opinion, NOT ENOUGH. During the summer we take 1000 IU in addition to the multivitamin – yes, I spend a lot of time outside in the sun, but I am always wearing sunscreen which prevents Vitamin D absorption – and then, when we roll the clocks back, we take 2000 IU. Actually, this year we started taking the double dose early, since we had such a stretch of cold and grey weather, but you know. I approximately time it with the end of Daylight Saving.

School’s Out…For A While

I feel like we need all the Vitamin D we can get our hands on, not only because the sun is setting before 5 pm, but also because new restrictions were announced on Tuesday, and the only one that affects me – as I was already NOT gathering with people, NOT eating out, NOT playing team sports, NOT going to worship services, and really NOT doing anything at all – is that all grades 7-12 students are doing “at-home learning” now until January 11.

I had a really hard few days last week; I am generally perky and optimistic, but I was feeling extremely despondent and sad. Monday morning as I was finishing my cardio workout, my watch started exploding with notifications from Power School, saying that my younger son was marked “in isolation” for the week. As it was 7:45 am and he was a) still at home, and b) healthy, I was very confused. It turns out that there was a Covid case in one of his classes and he was to be home for two weeks.

To be totally honest, I was not worried about his physical health; the case was in his math class, all kids are masked and relatively distanced, and it wasn’t one of his friends with whom he eats lunch (outside, also relatively distanced). I was, however, worried about his mental health. He’s a very social kid and the thought of him spending hours doing schoolwork alone in his room on his laptop was…not great. The next day, however, I learned he would soon be joined by his brother, as everyone was transitioning to “at-home learning.”

So that was a blow. I get it. I do. But! My kids have been thriving in their strange, masked-up school environment. They have never complained about wearing masks, they have never complained about all the restrictions, they wear masks even when outside, when they are with friends. We’ve had a few days to process it, and the school is doing everything to make this a smooth transition, learning from the chaos that was in the spring, but still. It’s a blow.

Also we do not have a big house and, well. Everyone is home, all the time.

All Quiet On The Grocery Front

Before the restrictions were announced on Tuesday, I was getting multiple texts from friends saying a) Costco and Walmart were both completely sold out of toilet paper, b) lineups at Costco were snaking doubly through the warehouse, and c) everything was terrible.

Wednesday is my regular grocery shopping day, and all I could think was I can’t do this again, I can’t do it. I was so stressed by the thought of grocery shopping, I hardly slept Tuesday night. I hauled myself to the grocery store for 8:00 am, right after seniors-and-those-with-disabilities hour, and…it was fine. Busier than a regular Wednesday at 8:00 am, but fine. There was plenty of everything, including toilet paper and other paper products, there were tons of cleaning supplies, including Lysol in spray and liquid AND wipe form, and all of the usual staples were stocked up. The only thing they did not have was large packages of spinach, of which I usually buy four per week. I figured this was just a delay in shelf stocking, and that there was no actual spinach shortage, so I am not ashamed to tell you that I completely cleaned out the store of smaller packages of spinach, stacking seven of them in my cart. As god is my witness, if I have to give up my daily green smoothies, someone is going to get stabbed.

Despite the overall fine-ness of the shopping experience, and despite the fact that I got a Lindor chocolate house as a gift with purchase instead of the dreadful poinsettia (they give them away for free, do NOT try to fundraise with them, NO ONE WANTS THEM) I was in a funk. I could not shake it.

Do you know what DOESN’T work when you’re in that kind of sadness spiral? Telling yourself that a trip to Superstore in a pandemic is not exactly standing in a bread line in Ceausescu’s Romania. Telling yourself that your life is not exactly like that of the dad’s in that movie about the little boy who was a ballet dancer, the dad who was a striking coal miner in 1980s Britain, who had to chop up his dead wife’s piano just to use the wood for the fire, who eventually crossed the picket line and endured the verbal abuse of his former friends just so he could provide for his family. I mean, next to that, I am practically Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.

I eventually told myself that while a paper cut is not a broken leg, it still hurts, and I sat with my sadness for a while. I went to bed early and felt much more myself the next day.

Oh Yes, We Need A Little Christmas. Right This Very Minute.

The tree is up!

That was the boost this week needed! This year’s ornament is a narwhal. The unicorn of the sea! Bye, Buddy, hope you find your dad!

I also started my Christmas baking, kicking things off with my annual gingersnaps (thank you, Co-Op, for having molasses).

Here’s your one chance, Fancy, don’t let me down.

Pandemic Reading

This was lovely and sweet and as soon as I finished it I put every single one of Camille Pagan’s books on my “to-read” list.

It is, I think, very important to read stories about people who encounter life differently from me, with different backgrounds and experiences. With that said, I did not at all enjoy this book. While it was beautifully written, I found it extremely disturbing, upsetting, depressing, and sad. It probably didn’t help that I read most of it on Wednesday of this week.

Following up on my reading of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, Grimm’s are also pretty nuts. Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) in particular mentioned Hansel and Gretel, which was in this collection. HOO BOY. Did you know that in the original version, Hansel gets turned into a fawn, then they live in the forest for a long time, the King goes on a deer hunt and injures him, and then falls in love with Gretel and marries her? This is all after their parents abandon them in the woods to die and instead they get taken in by a witch who – for reasons that are not clear – locks Hansel only into a cage to fatten up in the manner of veal, for later feasting. Not at ALL a disturbing concept for children.

It’s the last day of November and as we head into December let’s all remember to be extra kind and patient with people in customer service, and people in general. Everyone has something going on, always, but especially this year. In the meantime, enjoy this Barkley photobomb. xo

Divisive Issues; Thirty-Six Weeks In

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The general manager of the community association at which I teach yoga classes – currently zoom, but previously in-person – was telling me that she is very tired of people coming in to the community centre, seeing her with a mask, and calling her a sheep. Are…people still doing that? Apparently, yes. We are well into our ninth month of this pandemic. We have had a mandatory mask mandate in the city since August 1. We are in a literal crisis situation with regards to our health care system, but sure. Let’s ridicule people following health directives. Sir, have you read the news today. Have you read the news in the past eight months.

I was quite shocked when she told me that; it’s my own fault, really, for being shocked, as I have unfollowed and unfriended everyone who was posting ridiculous things like photos of a lion rising above a herd of sheep with captions like Me in the grocery store without a mask or various diatribes about how the virus is a hoax and any vaccine will be used by the government to track our movements.

Ha! I dare anyone to track my movements and stay awake in the process. She’s getting in her car and…going to Superstore. Now she’s home, putting groceries away. Oh look, she’s…walking in her neighbourhood. Wait wait, here she goes…to the library. And she’s…going to Superstore. Again.

Anyway, since I don’t see anti-mask posts like that anymore I find myself surprised to find that masks are still a divisive issue. Our fitness club has been sending out emails to the effect that if members are unable to wear face masks for health reasons, then they must wear face shields. I cannot imagine face shields being MORE comfortable than masks, and knowing the demographics of our fitness club like I do, I feel that “health reasons” are a euphemism for “I don’t want to.” If my teenagers can wear masks at school all day every day, along with 2200 other teenagers obeying the directive, then certainly the rest of us can slip one on for a couple of hours in public places.

So masks are – STILL, OMG – a divisive issue, but what I wanted to talk about today is FUN divisive issues, the kind of divisive issues that have no impact on other people, particularly no impact that could eventually lead to death.

The Top Sheet

I was well into my forties before I learned that not everybody uses a top sheet. Frankly, I could not have been more surprised if I woke up with my head sewn to the carpet. No. Top. Sheet. No judgment here, but what do you do for laundry? Even though I have adopted the “burrito method” for putting on my duvet cover, I still have to force myself to wash it bi-monthly or even quarterly, I hate that job so much. If you don’t have a top sheet, are you washing your duvet cover weekly? Aren’t you missing out on that lovely sandwich feeling of sliding between the sheets? And what do you DO with the top sheet that comes in every sheet set? I have so many questions, I will await your responses.

Making The Bed

I was in university when a friend chided me – CHIDED ME – for making my bed every day. “It’s the biggest waste of time!” she said to me. “What is the point?” Well, the point is a) it is a wonderful feeling to slide into a nicely-made bed at night, rather than a jumble of sheets (or, sheet, for those of you without a top sheet) and blankets, and b) in terms of making things look nice in the bedroom, there is no faster way to perk the room up than making the bed. I don’t know how long it takes you, but it is less than sixty seconds for me to pull the sheet and duvet up, and put on the pillow shams and decorative pillows. It is a pretty big bang for the cleaning buck, if you ask me.

Underwear to Bed

While we are speaking of the bedroom, what about wearing underwear to bed? I recall this being a Major Topic of Discussion during childhood sleepovers, the idea of letting the honeypot “breathe.” I do not know about the science backing up that claim. I am a person who is cold by nature – cold hands, warm heart – and also, despite my yoga life, kind of restrictive. I wear full-on pajamas, with underwear AND A BRA to bed. It’s a soft, sleep bra but a bra nonetheless. I guess I’m just more comfortable in lots of layers.

Eggnog

Is there a holiday libation more divisive than eggnog? God bless you all for cheering its festive appearance in the grocery store, but I am on the side of full-body shudder at the thought of consuming its thick viscosity. I know many of you right now are saying But with rum! But I have a great homemade recipe! But there are vegan versions! and bless you for trying, but NO. Here’s another secret: I don’t even like rum. I know! You think you know a person and then they drop a bomb like that.

Mint Chocolate

IT IS MY SEASON, PEOPLE. You Pumpkin Spice people, bless your hearts, have had your moment in the sun, but now it’s mine. I have good friends who think mint chocolate tastes like toothpaste. Well, a) more for me, and b) toothpaste tastes great, that’s why we like to be minty fresh. I have a box of candy canes that is going to be made into chocolate bark, it’s time to purchase After Eights and Peppermint Lindor, and my sweet little niece dropped off four boxes of mint chocolate Girl Guide cookies this weekend, LET’S CELEBRATE THE SEASON.

Last Christmas

I personally think that Last Christmas is one of the greatest holiday songs ever written, but there are people out there who do NOT. Have you heard of Whamageddon? It’s a game where people actively try not to hear Last Christmas during the holiday season. Why would you deprive yourself of joy? My first hearing of it was when I was briefly in the mall, and everyone around me (socially distanced, masked) was grooving to it, and that was November 5. On November 12 I started listening to all my Christmas Spotify playlists, including the one made by my friend Peggy (HI PEGGY) which is exclusively made up of different versions of Last Christmas. What I’m saying is that I would fail at Whamageddon on purpose.

All right, it’s your turn! Where do you stand on these divisive issues, and what issues did I miss?

Pandemic Reading

If you want to better understand the nature of depression, this is the book for you. It’s part memoir, part investigative journalism. Some of it is fascinating. Some of it is tedious. A lot of it is very difficult to read and very sad. It’s edifying but not enjoyable.

After reading about toxic masculinity and depression, I needed a break. This book was SO MUCH FUN. I love the blog Go Fug Yourself, and I loved their book The Royal We, but I have to say I loved this even more. It was just delightful, and the dialogue was A+.

My friend Mary-Lynn (HI MARY-LYNN) recommended this to me after I read Mrs. Dalloway. It’s brilliant! I love the kind of book that twines seemingly unrelated people together.

And the outdoor lights are up! Things are merry and bright – and this weekend, it will be the tree! Have a good week, stay safe, and don’t let the divisive issues divide us. xo

19th Nervous Breakdown (in the grocery store); Thirty-Five Weeks In

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The province announced what I am going to call a very mini-shutdown on Friday the 13th, and it called to mind the last Friday the 13th, eight months ago, when the very mini-shutdown led to the total big shutdown. It’s enough to make a person turn superstitious. I’ve been oscillating between despair that a mini-shutdown is going to do anything at all, sadness that there is really no way to police what seems to be the real driver, large private gatherings and that people are just going to keep partying, slight hope that two weeks might make a difference, and a what can you do other than recite the Serenity Prayer over and over kind of feeling. I’ve been refreshing the news all weekend but so far, still a very mini-shutdown, also still the depths of despair about a looming full-scale one. Well, today I feel calm and zen about the whole thing, it’s like I’ve been constantly preparing for the possibility of a full-scale shutdown. My house is stocked, my pantry is full, my Christmas shopping is complete and I have two cases of wine in the basement.

What more could a girl need?

Two of my favourite bloggers, Suzanne and Swistle (HI SUZANNE HI SWISTLE) have been regularly writing about grocery store shortages, and I find it endlessly fascinating, the things that are available and unavailable in other parts of the continent. Forget continent, there are variances in our province. My mother, who lives two hours north of me, couldn’t obtain a ten-kilogram bag of flour, whereas in my grocery stores, flour is plentiful. In fact, last week Superstore had the ten-kilogram bags on sale for $8.98. EIGHT DOLLARS AND NINETY-EIGHT CENTS. For ten kilograms of flour. Of course I picked one up, even though I had two bags at home, which leads me to my next point.

My brain has completely changed in the past eight months; I used to be able to calmly think oh, I have flour at home, I can get some when I need it, but not anymore. NOT ANYMORE. Suzanne referred to this as Grocery Store Pathology, this panicked feeling that if you do not seize the moment and buy the things that are available to you, they may not be there next time.

Here’s the thing: circling back to the grocery store shortages, I have not really noticed anything in short supply over the past few months. There has been talk about aluminum shortages, but I bought soda water in cans last week and there certainly didn’t seem to be any shortage of that. Flour – as mentioned – pasta, rice, frozen vegetables, toilet paper and paper towel, all of those things are plentiful right now. The one thing I’ve noticed – and this probably isn’t a pandemic thing, it’s more like a weird Superstore thing – is that I haven’t been able to get my favourite kind of peanut butter, Just Nuts Crunchy.

All the other Just Nuts peanut butters are available: creamy, sea salt, honey, but the crunchy hasn’t been there for weeks, and I was starting to get into my one backup jar, so I was feeling a bit desperate. I mean, I only eat peanut butter on toast once or twice a week, so the situation was not DIRE, but it felt like it was. I took a leap of faith and bought the store brand natural crunchy peanut butter, although I was somewhat irritated to discover that it was a dollar more expensive than the name brand for the exact same size. The store brand! More expensive! This is an outrage, I want to talk to the manager.

Anyway, as I was in Superstore last week I was feeling so serene about everything – it’s fine, everything’s fine, if the worst thing that happens is I eat store brand peanut butter, well, I am better off than pretty much everyone – until I got to the baking aisle. I needed a carton of molasses with which to make my annual gingersnaps. I had finished my last carton making gingerbread a few weeks ago. I pushed my cart, humming along to the music, and then, puzzled, retraced my steps. I looked again. People, there was no molasses. I stared at the empty shelf for a solid minute and then felt like I might have an actual breakdown right there in the baking aisle, next to the dried fruit, shredded coconut, and shortening. CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED, THERE ARE NO GINGERSNAPS. It was a 180 degree flip, from calm and serene to everything is terrible. On the outside, I’m sure I seemed perfectly fine and put together, but it’s like when your sock starts sliding off into your boot: I was not fine. I smiled at people through my mask, I chatted with the cashier, I gestured to the elderly man who had literally a loaf of bread and a package of sausages to go in front of me, but on the inside, I was like the Sadness character from Inside Out.

I made it to the parking lot, and it had not been plowed. I immediately regretted the soda water and the ten kilograms of flour, as my cart became immovably stuck in the snow. What even is the point of all this flour. I cannot make gingersnaps. Is there even a molasses substitute. All is ashes.

Literally, I could not move the cart, using all my strength and momentum. I stared up the aisle of the parking lot, seeing my car in the distance. There was nothing for it but to abandon my cart and carry each bin, one by one, to my car as fast as I could. By the time I had gotten down to the last bin, a very kind woman stopped and helped me move the cart to a packed-down part of the parking lot, and from there I was able to maneuver it to my car, the whole time wondering how many calories I was burning during this shopping trip. Her kindness perked me up, and I decided to stop at the Co-Op on the way home. I don’t like doing two grocery shops in a week but I thought I would just pop in and pop out, to see if they had molasses. People, they did, they had shelves of it, and I bought TWO, which is much more than I need but hey. Grocery store pathology. I can always use it next year.

Pandemic Reading

Apparently Toxic Masculinity was the unwitting theme of the week. Last week it was Liar’s Poker, this week:

I am unsure if I am recommending this to you or not. I mean. At its core, it’s a story about a family, told from multiple points of view. It’s also a study of toxic masculinity and the rise of supporters of a certain person who wanted to make America great again. So, it might be a wee bit raw. It was well-written. It was well done. It was thoughtful and insightful and very smart. But. I cannot say it was enjoyable.

This was a really wonderful book – by a Canadian author – about being a young woman in a secret relationship with an older, prominent politician. Well, you probably think you know where this is going. But it has turns I did not expect and an ending I did not expect, and it was very well done. It was probably the most brutally honest, yet enjoyable, book about being young and in a toxic relationship. Speaking of toxic masculinity! It’s up there, Steve.

This was the week to pull out the Christmas tea towels, coffee mugs, and music. 70s on 7 has been changed to the Hallmark channel while in the car, and my festive Spotify playlists have been on repeat. We need a little Christmas, right this very minute. Stay safe and healthy, friends. xo

The Return of Tiny Secret Festive Season; Thirty-Four Weeks In

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Last Thursday, in a single adrenaline-fuelled afternoon, I finished my Christmas shopping. I do most of my shopping online, but there are always a few things that I want to physically look at, hence last Thursday’s trip to the mall.

The mall, you guys. The mall. One thing I will say about the mall is that Covid safety precautions are being followed to a tee, from social distancing to mask-wearing to extra cleaning to hand sanitizing stations everywhere. I had to sanitize my hands each time I entered a store, RIP my skin. So, I congratulate the mall and all my fellow Thursday afternoon mall-goers for following the rules and embracing the new protocols. I only saw ONE elderly woman with a mask under her nose, which is a big improvement over any other time I have been out in public.

However, it’s still the mall. I started off in a Let’s Fucking Go kind of mood, all energized and excited because, in the very first store I found the exact perfect gift for my husband’s sister. I am not a person for whom Gift-Giving is my Love Language, but I swear I got a little burst of serotonin when I obtained the item.

I was energetic, happy, and chatty for the first hour, but by the time I got to my last stop, The Bay – what IS IT with The Bay, you guys, why is it always so dreadful and why do I continue to shop there – I was definitely flagging. I was sweltering in my mask, winter coat, and boots, loaded down with bags, and dying for a drink of water when I got to the checkout and the person in front of me was having a very long discussion with the cashier about a coupon, and why couldn’t it be used in this situation, and okay, let’s put everything on separate bills so it could, and I GET IT, WE ALL WANT TO SAVE MONEY BUT WHY ARE THERE ONLY THREE TILLS OPEN FOR THIS ENTIRE GIANT DEPARTMENT STORE.

Anyway. Eventually I was back in the parking lot, sitting in my car just staring out the window for a good five minutes before I put on my seat belt and drove home.

Once I got home, with all my shopping in the rearview mirror, I immediately became festive-feeling and swapped out all my hand soaps for ones that are named Winter Candy Apple and Frosted Coconut Snowball, so the Tiny Secret Festive Season has begun! My grocery notepad has been exchanged for a festive-themed one, on November 1 I put on my Christmas bracelet and brought out my red-plaid pajamas, and I’ve been using Vanilla Candy Cane body butter on my feet at night. Sugar cookie and gingerbread dough have been made and are in the freezer, and on Thursday I will swap out my poppy and apple-themed tea towels for Christmas ones. My Buddy the Elf mugs will make their appearance this week for morning coffee, mark my words.

We had a short streak of extremely mild weather, and so my husband and I took advantage of it to hang the Christmas ornaments in our Mayday tree. Every November there is someone who, if a person expresses even mild joy about the festive season, will sternly and austerely remind that person that no one should ever express such feelings prior to Remembrance Day, that it is disrespectful and wrong. Let me tell you: I do not agree with this character assessment. If a person wants to go full-on Clark Griswold the second the Halloween decorations come down, let your sparkly, Santa-themed flag fly. Let’s take joy where we can and if that means watching the Hallmark channel, putting up a tree, or just eating peppermint-flavoured goodies in November, DO IT.

If you think for even one moment that we are, in the Boyhouse, not going to embrace a 18 degree day IN NOVEMBER and use it to glovelessly tie ornaments onto a tree with tiny little strings, then you have another think coming. Unfortunately, this weekend was snowy with wind warnings, and subsequently we had to send the boys out looking on the street to find a couple of balls that had broken off in the wind, but that’s tradition. Calgary tradition.

Pandemic Reading

This was really fun to read, about working in the bond markets – specifically Salomon Brothers – in the 1980s. Woo! What a ride. Some of you may know that I worked on the structured products desk on a natural gas trading floor, and did this take me back. I worked during the California Crisis, when natural gas and electricity prices skyrocketed, and I remember the market volatility and all that ensued. Also, let’s just say that bond traders in the 1980s were not dissimilar to natgas traders in the 2000s. I remember one guy – Tom – who became so infuriated that he repeatedly smashed his phone on his desk until it broke. He had to go to an anger management course, but I don’t think that was as effective as the reaction of the rest of the floor. Any time Tom would walk by, everyone would exaggeratedly cover their phones. If he came to discuss a deal, someone would say Don’t fucking touch my phone, man, I need it. This went on…well, it’s probably still going on. The pranks and dares, too. I remember one guy was paid $10 to EAT a piece of styrofoam. He did it and was quite unwell for the rest of the day. There was also a bet to see who could drink more water in the span of 30 minutes and then not use the bathroom for two hours. The winner, I recall, was not feeling well after over-hydrating. Ah, good times. Anyway, this book was a lot of fun if you’re into that sort of thing, but note that it was written in 1989 and the extremely insensitive language reflects that.

This was just LOVELY and a perfect read for the festive season. So Christmas-spirit-ish. The author was born and raised in Calgary, too, so yay!

I will leave you with my newest Tiny Secret Festive items – a series of handmade bookmarks by a VERY talented, young local artist. Aren’t they adorable? I have a number of her bookmarks but I really wanted some festive ones, and now the problem is choosing which to use!

Have a beautiful week, my friends. If you’re also a Tiny Secret Festive person, how are you celebrating this week? xo

Halloween and Blue Moon Rising; Thirty-Three Weeks In

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There was a war going on in our neighbourhood and my husband declared himself the winner.

So how was your Halloween?

We had about 25 Trick or Treaters, which was a great number for our street. Our neighbours told me that they each had about six, and so I think kids were only going to houses with lots of decorations this year; a signalling thing, I suppose.

I handed out full-size chocolate bars like a Very Fancy Lady, in the most Covid-safe way I could think of. Most of the people in my neighbourhood, according to the Facebook page, had treat tables set up with little bags, and in one case, a giant spiderweb with full-size bars stuck in the web. However, I like to see the sweet costumes, and so tongs and PPE it was.

We weren’t going to carve pumpkins as the Decorative Gourds I bought are now, due to the extreme cold and snow, mush, but my friend offered me hers and so I stole an idea from my son’s friend:

I’m having a bit of a Nora Ephron I Feel Bad About My Neck moment here.

My kids did not Trick or Treat, being “too old,” but they did wander the neighbourhood for a few hours with their friends, all eight of wearing burlap sacks on their heads. Eight giant teen boys wandering around in the dark wearing burlap sacks on their heads, what could possibly go wrong.

Speaking of scary and spooky things, I have been reading Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales. When was the last time you read an actual fairy tale, one that hadn’t been modernized or Disney-fied? YOU GUYS. Shit gets REAL in Fairy Tale Land.

It all started months ago when I put this collection on hold at the library, as I was thinking about the original Little Mermaid. I knew it was a sad ending but couldn’t exactly remember how it went, and yes, it is definitely worth reading about the sharp and shooting pain that the Little Mermaid has once her fin is severed and she’s walking around on legs. It is a very sad story, but no more sad than most of the tales in this collection.

For example: The Little Match Girl. I vividly recall reading this story as a child; it was terrifying then and it’s even more so now. Here’s the premise for this tale geared towards children: a little girl, whose job it is to sell boxes of matches to passerby, is wandering around the street barefoot on New Year’s Eve. Let us recall that Hans Christian Anderson was Danish, and therefore it would be VERY cold wandering around the street barefoot on New Year’s Eve. She’s barefoot because she has no shoes; she wore her mother’s shoes to go out to sell matches, but as they were too big she lost them while dodging carriages in the street. Anyway, here it is, New Year’s Eve, and she is scared to go home as she has sold no matches today, and if she goes home without the pennies she would have earned for selling matches, her father will beat her.

Let’s just let all that information sink in for a moment.

So anyway, here she is, freezing cold and hungry – obviously she hasn’t eaten either – and not all that willing to go home. In any case, home is a literal shack with holes in the wall, and there’s no food there anyway. She sits down in a little corner of the street and tries to warm her hands by lighting a match, and from the illumination she starts to hallucinate things like a warm fireplace, a roast goose dinner, and a Christmas tree. She lights match after match and the hallucinations – yes, children’s story – continue until she sees her dead grandmother, the “only person who ever loved her.” She begs her grandmother to take her to heaven with her, and she subsequently dies, frozen, with a smile on her face.

WELL.

Another story I remember from my childhood – I am sure I had one of those little records with a book that you could read along with, that had a little chime when it was time to turn the page – was Thumbelina. Wow, is that a messed up story. I remember loving it as a child, and I can see why: everything is in miniature. Thumbelina has a walnut shell for a bed, a tulip petal for a boat, a little hammock woven out of grass. So sweet! And yet the story itself is Crazy Town. Thumbelina gets kidnapped by a toad’s mother so that she can be the toad’s bride. Hello meddling mother-in-law. She is, understandably, distraught about being kidnapped and marooned on a lily pad so she can’t escape her toady bridal chamber, but some fishes and a butterfly help her escape. When winter comes she seeks shelter with a little field mouse, who introduces her to her neighbour, a mole. The mole wants to marry her and all her troubles will be gone, as the mole is portrayed as being wealthy. The only catch is, because her new husband will be a MOLE, she will have to live underground forever and never see the sun.

I feel like a whole series of dissertations could be written about the symbolism herewith.

Anyway, Thumbelina finds what everyone thinks is a dead bird, but it’s really only just frozen. She nurses it back to health and it helps her escape her safe-yet-forever-underground life of Mrs. Mole; she subsequently lands in a flower and marries a little tiny prince who is in charge of all the flowers, and yay, happy ending.

Pandemic Reading

Thankfully, I did read something besides the unsettling and opium-trippy fairy tales this week.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It follows a woman who is principal of a Muslim girls’ school that is targeted by a shooter; it describes her life growing up and coming of age as a Muslim in America. It’s a very moving and important read.

On the other side of the spectrum was this book. It was the book equivalent of coming inside after shovelling snow in the freezing cold, and having a chai and a gingersnap. It’s a sweet, satisfying, warm hug of a book.

This series of essays about being a gay black Christian man in America was both hilarious and thought-provoking.

Here’s my best shot of the Blue Moon on Halloween; and on that note, Happy November! Or, as I like to call it, Happy Countdown To The Christmas Season! I’m thinking about all my American friends this week, and hoping for a peaceful transfer of power. Stay well. xo