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The slow slide from Mother to Crone *

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“I actually can’t believe it,” my husband said to me last night. “You actually ARE stepping back from things at the school.”

It’s true. This week is Book Fair, and for the first time since 2009, I am not spending all day every day at the Book Fair. I have a lovely co-coordinator (HI HAYDEE) who is going to take over when I leave the school, and we are each doing half of the shifts. Therefore, today, when I normally would be repeating “The posters are five dollars. That one too. They are all five dollars. No, that’s not nail polish. It’s a highlighter. The posters are five dollars.” over and over, I am in front of my computer, doing work – and writing this. I’ll be repeating those phrases on Thursday, of course, but as of right now I’ve had an incredibly productive day.

Last Friday was the Family Dance, and again, for the first time I was not intimately involved with the arrangements. In fact, I did virtually nothing whatsoever except donate a batch of cupcakes topped with cookie crumbs and gummy worms.

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Is there a child alive who does not enjoy worms and dirt? I think not.

It turns out that all these years of bake sale-ing, I’ve been doing it wrong. Children don’t care if you create something with all natural, organic whole ingredients. They don’t care that you lovingly made dye-free frosting or used organic coconut oil to make caramel corn. They want pizzazz! They want style! They want candy on cupcakes, and they don’t care if the cupcakes came from a mix and the frosting came from a can. Realizing this was a revelation to me. I slapped these babies together and they were gone as fast as they were set out. We are all winners in this situation.

But back to the dance: for years I’ve been very involved, assisting the organizer and arranging the bake sale table, and volunteering for every shift for the entire night. This time, my husband and I went with the kids and paid the family rate, I clapped my hands and said “It’s my jam!” to my embarrassed husband when the DJ played Bust-a-Move, and then we ensured the kids each had money to spend and we booked it out of there. Yes, during the Family Dance my husband and I walked up the street and had a drink at the pub, coming back 30 minutes before the last dance. WINNING AGAIN.

It seems that I am starting the slow decline from Enthusiastic Young Mom Who Is Involved to Tired, Embittered and Cynical Pre-Menopausal Woman Whose Children Are Going To Junior High. I mean, I’m not there yet. I’m definitely not totally embittered and cynical and the kids are not yet in junior high. Yet, I can see myself going down the slope from I’m going to rejuvenate the School Council and we are going to have the best year ever! to I’m just going to make some cupcakes from a goddamn mix and throw some fucking gummy worms on them. But, you know, in my trademark cheerful and happy way.

I need to keep that cheerfulness and happiness, because I sure don’t want to turn into a Bitter Old Crone. Remember the Potato Lady? The old lady at the Co-Op who I witnessed yelling at the produce manager because she wanted a three pound bag of potatoes, not a five pound bag of potatoes, and goddamn if she was going to weigh those potatoes herself? And the produce manager was so kind and patient, it was kind of inspirational for everyone?

SHE IS BACK. I repeat, THE POTATO LADY IS BACK. I was at the Co-Op on Saturday, and I heard a shrill, old-lady voice aggressively ask one of the produce stockers where the manager was, and when he’d be back. The stocker left and returned with that same, patient produce manager, and because I am nosy, I listened in on their conversation while intently looking over the red peppers.

People, it was almost the same exact conversation from six months ago. The Potato Lady had an issue with the bags of potatoes, the five pound potatoes were too much, the very kind produce manager agreed to choose and weigh the potatoes for her, did she want Yukon Gold or red potatoes? And I wondered if maybe, maybe the Potato Lady does this regularly – maybe even weekly –  to get special service in the potato department, in a Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease kind of way. Perhaps the Potato Lady is incredibly crafty; maybe she loves getting attention from the much-younger produce manager. Maybe it makes her feel young and beautiful to have a man bring her potatoes, rather than having to choose her own.

And then I thought, maybe that will be me one day, except that I don’t really like potatoes. Maybe I will be using all my wiles – but hopefully not shrill and aggressive ones – to get special attention from the men in my life, the men being the produce managers and the long-suffering interns at the nursing home. Maybe one day I will be wearing my bright lipstick bleeding into my lip lines, asking the produce manager to reach that kale for me, wink wink, and while he was at it, could he help me choose a zucchini? Not that one, the BIG one. And then the produce manager will go home and crack open a beer and shudder at the implications.

In any case, I think the produce manager has earned an entire crown of heavenly stars for his kind and patient behaviour. He’s going straight to the same place as the marketing people at Starbucks who designed the 2014 holiday cup, complete with snowflakes and ice skates.

*many thanks to Allison for letting me borrow the term “Mother to Crone,” even though she doesn’t know I’ve borrowed it yet. (HI ALLISON I LOVE YOU)

Monster Mash Aftermath

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So how was Halloween? My husband got home from his business trip on Friday, and so Saturday was a whirlwind of activity: in addition to the usual Saturday morning karate/ workouts/ grocery shopping, we carved pumpkins and the boys helped my husband put up the finishing touches in our yard. The front yard was filled with giant ghouls, skulls, and gravestones, as well as a number of animatronic motion-sensored ghosts, spiders, and shrunken heads. It was very spooky! In the words of a tiny Ariel who came to our door, “Your house is TOO SCAWWY.”

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The pumpkins weren’t the scary part. Can you tell which is mine?

In fact, we only had eight trick-or-treaters, which is really average for our old-people street, but of the eight, one refused to climb our steps, and two of them cried in terror. A tiny, nervous Minnie Mouse accepted my offerings of a giant handful of chocolate bars, at which inopportune moment an animatronic spider and shrunken head began to descend, cackling loudly. Minnie Mouse burst into tears and started screaming for her daddy, while her older brother rolled his eyes at her and said, “It’s just PEE-TEND.”

The upside to only having eight trick-or-treaters is that when my kids go out, they really clean up. All the people in our immediately neighbouring houses dote on them, and so they came home loaded down with candy and chips. Oh! So many chips. It is TORTURE. The only reason I haven’t eaten them all is that the kids really love them too, and know how many they have. It’s hard to be a chip thief under those circumstances, which is good news for my pants.

Their haul was the best I’ve seen in a long time – a huge variety of candy, and no random handfuls of unwrapped peppermints like last year. Also no ecstasy or razor blades! I have always thought that was an urban legend anyway – who would spend money like that to put in trick-or-treat bags? – but then someone told me she once found a rolled joint in one of her kids’ bags, so I guess it could happen.

I related the story of the worst item I ever received on Halloween to my kids. I was about six years old, and dressed as a mouse. At one door, a man – who I now recognize was most likely inebriated – came to the door, laughing hysterically. When I said “Trick or Treat!” he told me to hold on for a moment. I was brought up to be very polite to adults, and if an adult told me to hold on a moment, I would wait. Wait I did, for several minutes until the man came back to the door, still laughing, and handed me a banana.

A banana! My husband, who grew up in a fruit-growing region, said the worst houses were the ones that handed out apples. But I say a banana is way worse. For one thing, there’s no chance it would survive the walk home, in a pillowcase filled with candy, bumping my legs the whole way. For another thing, it’s a banana.

After trick-or-treating and discovering no joints nor bananas, we headed to a party at a friend’s house. I had thought long and hard about my costume, and I was so excited about it. I drew a P on a plain shirt, and then coloured one of my eyes black with an eye liner pencil. A black-eyed pea! I was just overcome with the cleverness. Except that it was a total bust. Not one person got it, and in fact, it seemed like some people weren’t even sure if they should comment on my black eye. At first I wondered how shitty I look in daily life – I mean, how big are my undereye circles? – but then I realized that NO ONE WANTED TO MENTION MY BLACK EYE IN CASE IT WAS AN ACTUAL BLACK EYE.

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I AM A BLACK EYE PEA

“I tried to warn you it wasn’t a good idea, but you didn’t listen,” my husband said to me. “And now people are looking at me weird.”

I posted this photo and I got everything from politely startled comments about my husband to an actual hashtag #batteredwife. Now, I was shocked for a couple of reasons: a) that people would think that dressing up as a victim of domestic abuse was a socially acceptable idea, and b) that people would think that I THINK dressing up as a victim of domestic abuse was a socially acceptable idea.

In any case, it was a bust, and for the Costume Family Dance on Friday, I’m definitely digging out my non-slutty pirate costume or my witch’s hat, because I just can’t go through that again.

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At least everyone understood their costumes.

Is this day thermal-spray-worthy? Probably not.

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Remember the Seinfeld episode where the contraceptive sponge was discontinued, and Elaine stocked up on them but had to screen each of her potential sexual partners to ensure that they were worthy of a sponge? I’m having that issue right now, but with hair products.

I haven’t written a “Nicole’s Favourite Things” in a while, but I wish I had sung the praises of Abba’s Thermal Styling Spray, because I’ve been using it for years. You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. This is the single greatest styling product of all time, but when I was in the salon a few weeks ago, my hair therapist mentioned that there seemed to be a Problem With The Supplier and she thought it might be Discontinued. She mentioned it to me with some degree of urgency, and said she was looking into Alternatives But Had Yet To Find A Good One.

Panic At The Disco.

I have one bottle in my possession, and I am hoarding it like nobody’s business. I’m now wondering what occasions will be important enough for me to use it. Coffee with the girls? Volunteering at the school? Visit with the in-laws? Good-looking plumber coming over to fix my kitchen tap?

The answer is “none of the above.” I’ve been only using some kind of flexible hold spritzer that I got at the drugstore as a stop gap measure. I’m not sure what occasion will warrant me using the thermal spray, but I sure hope that my hair therapist finds a good alternative soon, or it will be a lifetime of merely-adequate hair days.

Speaking of hair, I was at Costco the other day, and the man who checks the carts and receipts at the exit gave me a big wink and a smile. He was sixty-plus, with a friendly face. “Red hair is my favourite,” he said to me, “And I love yours!” Well, I thanked him very much, to which he responded, with a nudge and raised eyebrows, “I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s all natural.” People, I was moments away from making a “carpet and curtains” joke, when my “inappropriate” siren went off. Note to self: making a ribald joke about matching the carpet to the nearly-retired cart-checker at Costco is inadvisable. Instead, I responded with a laugh and a comment about the feistiness being natural, anyway.

The whole reason I was in Costco, besides getting frozen fruit, was to look for sheets. You know how there are some areas of your life that you just find yourself being overly frugal? That’s me with sheets. I may have enough yoga wear to clothe the entire studio on any given day, but when it comes to sheets, ours were so old and had been laundered so many times that they were literally starting to fall apart. The edges of the sheets and pillowcases were frayed, and the sheets themselves were getting worn to threads. And yet, I kept thinking to myself, they’re still good. They’re fine, really.

Long, boring, and completely “who gives a shit” story short, I bought some new sheets and they have been life affirming. Every night I say to my husband, “Look at the sheets! Aren’t they glorious! They’ve changed my life!” And because he’s a patient man, he nods and says “Go to sleep now, you’re starting to not make sense.”

My reluctance to buy new sheets is probably related to my reluctance to throw out the one-centimetre-square piece of soap in the soap dish, because I can still wash my hands with it if I lather hard enough. I know. I know. I blame my mother, whose ability to repurpose freezer bags is legendary.

NO COFFEE NO PRANA

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That’s something that Ashtanga yogis like to say a lot – no coffee, no prana – because it was said by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, who was apparently a coffee lover. I say it to myself every day when I’m waiting for the coffee maker – no coffee, no prana. I also sing Linda Put The Coffee On, but with “Nicole” substituted for “Linda” which pretty much sums me up nicely.

All of which is to say that today is, apparently, National Coffee Day. One fun little perk about my job at Yummy Mummy Club is that I’m always in the know about what kind of special day it is. Did you know that every day is a special day, and not just in a Romper Room, Mr. Rogers, carpe diem kind of way? Every day celebrates something, which is fun, even if it’s totally random. It’s always National Drink Beer Day or National Love Your Dog Day or National Guacamole Day or National Weiner Schnitzel Day. September 4th is National Hug Your Boss Day, which seems kind of unprofessional, but it’s also National Newspaper Carrier Day. Every second Tuesday in September is National Ants on a Log Day, and tomorrow is both National Chewing Gum Day and National Mud Pack Day.

So today is National Coffee Day, although in my house, every day is National Coffee Day. If it wasn’t, it would be National Oh-My-God-I’m-So-Bitchy Day, so let’s just let me enjoy my coffee. Mmmkay?

As an aside, yesterday I was told that the term “Bitchy Resting Face” is an anti-feminist thing to say. Sure, we probably don’t say that old men with furrowed brows have Bitchy Resting Face, but we might think they look like jerky assholes, so I think we are probably even on that front. BRF just rolls off the tongue more than “wow, that guy looks like a jerky asshole who wants to burn the whole city down, maybe he should smile more.” Meh. I am not anti-feminist – obviously – but I have to tell you, there are reasons I smile in photos. Here’s the biggest reason:

BRF

 

You might say, no, that’s just your face, it’s not bitchy, to which I would respond that the above photo illustrates why I smile a lot. I look like I’m going to murder someone if they say ONE MORE WORD and the truth is, I was probably just looking at a tree. I don’t like looking like this on the outside when I feel like this on the inside:

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Photo from my very talented friend Lucas http://lucasramage.com/

 

You know who doesn’t have Bitchy Resting Face? Barkley. We went away for the weekend and when I picked him up from the “spa” he just couldn’t stop smiling.

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Just like me, smiling is his favourite. But I guess he wouldn’t have Bitchy Resting Face anyway, because he’s a male dog and as such is literally not a bitch.

But I digress. I meant to write about our weekend away and got caught up in drinking a pot of coffee and writing about National Coffee Day. Our trip was fantastic. We were on the very west coast of Vancouver Island, in Tofino. The weather was perfect. The travel was perfect. We had a hot tub on our deck and were right beside the beach. Even the flights were serendipitous – we had boarded our flight to the Island, and were informed we were going to be early when the pilot announced that there was an issue with the cargo door and we wouldn’t be able to take off. But! There was an EMPTY PLANE RIGHT BESIDE US, so we flew in that. That never happens, so I felt like it was a good omen for the weekend.

It’s great to go away and great to be home, and yesterday I caught up on all the laundry, and groceries, and work that had piled up, but it all feels good. The leaves have all changed colour, suddenly, and the city is a gorgeous mix of blue skies with yellow, red, and orange leaves. The cosmos I planted two years ago have self seeded and are in full bloom, amazingly, and all is well in the world. Many, many reasons to smile.

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Back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool.

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I know it’s the big “first day of school” for a lot of you, but we are already into our second week. The boys were pretty happy to start school last week; we are all enjoying that “back to routine” feeling. The children have been relentlessly quoting Billy Madison: back to school, back to school, to prove to my dad that I’m no fool. Over and over.

I, for one, have been incredibly productive and busy since they’ve been back at school, which is a good feeling. I mean, I miss them – and today I miss them more since they are staying for lunch for the first school patrol meeting of the year – but it’s kind of nice to get things done, too, and to hear later all about the exciting news of the day. “We’re going to be learning about Ancient Greece and the origins of democracy!” said Mark happily, along with “We’ll be looking for moss in our forestry unit!” Jake excitedly talked about the Math Question of the Week, which had to do with being trapped and tied up in a room with a ticking time bomb, and a rat chewing the knots on the rope, and would you be freed in time, or blow up? Jake loves math anyway but the semi-violent and gross Question of the Week took it over the top for him. Math AND explosions? How can one go wrong? Needless to say, the first week was pretty great.

Barkley’s not as happy with the change in season, though:

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Look at that sad, fuzzy face.

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Poor Barkley.

Other than Barkley’s depression, things have been fine so far; I’m thrilled with the boys’ teachers and classroom sizes, and they are too. I’m less thrilled that Mark has already had a cold and so spent the long weekend coughing and lethargic, although the weekend was cold and rainy – and even a bit snowy – so it could always be worse. He could have been coughing and lethargic on a nice weekend. As it was, we spent most of the weekend at my parents’ place for an early Jake-birthday celebration.

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This week I’m apparently going to be chaperoning a walking field trip to a nearby natural park, dubbed “Whispering Woods.” The boys’ teachers are really on the ball and are very technologically-oriented, and so I received a message detailing all scheduled field trips for the upcoming year. The upside of this is that the boys will both be exposed to some excellent learning opportunities, such as a week long trip to something called the “Open Minds” arts centre. The downside is that each of them will require parent volunteers for a week for the trip to the aforementioned “Open Minds” arts centre. I have a feeling my mind is going to be opened. Opened, like a gift, or a flower, or something.

In any case, I received the request for volunteers for this week’s field trip, and in a moment of weakness I capitulated. After all, as I told my husband perkily, now that I’m not chairing the School Council or Parent Association, I have extra time for these in-class requests. “Or,” he said ominously, “You could just say that you’ve done enough volunteering to last a lifetime and have someone else do it.” True.

In any event, I’m happy to say that the forecast is not for snow, nor rain, during the scheduled field trip, although I am wondering what I was thinking. Three hours in the Whispering Woods with 53 fifth-and-sixth graders? Looking at various plants and – if Mark is to be believed – moss? This doesn’t sound like the best idea I’ve ever had.

See you in September

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Today is the very last day of summer vacation and I’m simultaneously melancholy about the fleeting nature of time, and excited to get back into routines. Every single platitude about time and children getting older (I’mmmmm getting older toooooooo) seems more poignant every year. I don’t want to be all “My BABIES” or anything, but I keep being reminded that I only have a limited number of summers to spend with the kids, and at some point they are not going to want to go bowling or watch Downton Abbey with their mom, so I Must Cherish Every Moment. Of course, all that cherishing gets tiring after a while, and so everyone is getting excited about back-to-school. I am, especially, looking forward to not working frantically between 7 and 9 am to get things done so I can Cherish My Darling Children All Day Long.

At this very moment, Cat’s in the Cradle came on the radio. Nice timing, 70s on 7.

The boys will be in Grades Five and Six this year; I have nice memories about Grade Six, but Grade Five was unequivocally the worst of my entire school career, due to typical ten-year-old Mean Girl Syndrome. I’m trying not to project, though, and Mark tells me that Grade Five Was The Most Epic Year Ever, so hopefully it’s equally epic for Jake.

Part of the back-to-school excitement is coming from actual certain knowledge of the kids’ new classes and teachers. Last week I received an email confirming a) each child’s teacher, b) each child’s classroom number, and c) the door at which each child is to line up at. This might sound like nothing to you, but it is certainly a big deal to me. In previous years, we wouldn’t know who the teachers would be or what classroom the kids would be in until 8:45 on the first day of school. Is that not a ridiculous system? Arriving at the school at 8:45, milling around the courtyard with hundreds of kids and their parents, looking for a teacher with a clipboard who would look up names and then finding the appropriate lineup. It was inevitable that there would be sad looking, teary-eyed children discovering that they’d been split from all their friends, and parents trying to Make The Best Of The Situation. I cannot imagine why it’s taken so long to implement such a normal strategy such as emailing parents to disperse information about teachers and classrooms so that kids can be prepared on the first day, but, continuing with platitudes, Better Late Than Never.

Filing under Other Things The School Rocks At, each fall parents pay a fee and school supplies are purchased by the school and distributed throughout the year. I cannot emphasize enough how appreciative I am of this policy, especially when I hear of my friends in other school boards frantically shopping for three lined notebooks in blue, green, and red or twelve number two pencils, yellow, all appropriately labelled, or a ridiculously unrealistic number of Elmer’s glue sticks. Unfortunately I often forget that not every school is the same, and I inevitably find myself thinking, on the first week of school, hmmm…I should go pick up some toothpaste and then ending up in Walmart feeling like I should just probably burn the whole store down and everyone in it, just to end the misery.

What is it about Walmart? Why is it so agonizing there? The boys and I briefly stopped in there last week to pick up some Benadryl and hand lotion, and it was a soul-destroying experience. It didn’t help that we were there on what appeared to be Shelf Restocking Day, and so the aisles were clogged with giant dollies full of product, and no product on shelves, along with people stocking up on sheaves of paper on sale for ten cents each. There was a giant lineup snaking into the “jewelry” department, along with six empty cashiers for 12 items or less. Fortunately that was us, and I wondered, if Walmart has some kind of conspiracy to keep people coming back multiple times just to get in the 12 items or less lineup. Why punish people who get in excess of 12 items? It makes no sense, but it must make sense to someone at Walmart Headquarters. It’s a puzzle for sure, but the bigger puzzle is if it’s really worth it to me to save $2 on Benadryl or if next time, I should just pick it up at the much-less-chaotic old-people Co-Op.