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Boyhouse Year In Review 2022

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Happy Almost New Year! I hope you have all been having a restful and restorative week! I have been enjoying myself immensely; lots of sleep, puzzles, books, food, and wine. We spent a few days at my parents, which is always fun, and involves games and food and more wine.

As is usual at this time of year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the year that’s passed and the year that is to come. One of the biggest benefits to having a blog is the ability to look back, and wow, have we come a long way since this time last year. Late December/ early January were an absolute low point; things were dismal. Happily, on our Roller Coaster of Life, things have been more up than down; so let’s take a look at what happened in the Boyhouse in 2022.

January

The New Year started off pretty bleak and grim, with winter break extended and all diploma exams cancelled, and to distract myself from complete despair I talked about my concepts and mantras I try to live by every day, the kids did go back to school and I decided to stop reading the news, I talked about actual quantifiable goals that I work towards every day, I talked about how much I hate filtered photos, how I actually thought about Botox, and how I was unfriended by a high school acquaintance not once but twice, and I had a roller-coaster of a week that included new neighbours, a cancelled trip, a mouse in the house, and a possible hoarding issue with macadamia nut milk. This month’s Favourite Things were of the Hygge variety, appropriately enough.

February

I talked about all the fun physical changes that come in one’s forties, including but not limited to moustaches and chin hair, I had massive gratitude for all the Galentines in my life, I showed you a Week of Winter Outfits (spoiler: lots of sweaters and legwarmers), and I talked about automatic car starters and marital mismatches. I also told you all about the daily choices I make to show myself some love.

March

All Covid restrictions were dropped, and I went to Costco and lost my mind, it was exactly two years since the pandemic started, and we celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, two years and one week in, we got Covid, and we eventually recovered enough to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary with a Banff getaway, and my son turned 18. While we were isolated, I talked about the things that made my recovery happier.

April

I talked about the juxtaposition of my desire to wave at every neighbour and my reluctance to talk to them and hear insensitive comments about Barkley (god, that was hard for me to read), there were many signs of spring in my life, Salvadore came into my life and brought so much gnome-related happiness, we had a massive snowstorm and I scheduled appointments like a boss. It was my birthday and I talked about 47 things I love.

May

I was absolutely exhausted from the neighbour’s construction, our internet went out for seven hours and somehow we all survived, we had a lot of snow and I went to the garden centre, I shared my Week of Spring Outfits, and my son had his high school graduation ceremony, dance, and banquet, none of which I thought would happen, and I am eternally grateful. At that point I stopped my Weekly Covid Count. I also shared with you my makeup routine, and included my 4:00 am bare face.

June

I lived on the edge and planted my tomatoes slightly early while the construction guys listened to Dick in a Box, I had a weird medical mystery, my midlife crisis manifested in me giving Salvadore an actual bubble bath, and I confessed to having Low Level Shame about ghosting my long-time hair stylist. I also joined my husband in Banff for a Fancy Conference. Well, I was there for the Fancy part, he was there for the Conference part.

July

On June 30, we said goodbye to Barkley, and we were all brokenhearted. We started off the summer with some visiting relatives from California – including my teenage pen pal – and our usual trip to the lake for Canada Day, I found solace in hiking, my garden, and cooking, and I also snapped at door-to-door solicitors, I talked about Cart Karma, I started a Big Project and Curated my Closet, and in the face of a Calgary Heat Wave, I shared my Week of Summer Outfits. It was also the Ten Year Anniversary of Nicole’s Favourite Things!

August

We went on vacation, I read a lot, I vowed to have Just One Backup of everything in the house and kind of failed, I got all nostalgic, my husband and I went to Mexico where I spoke broken Spanish and sang karaoke, and I read a lot more. Notably and for the first time ever, I travelled with ONLY carryon, and I can never go back, proving that YOU SHOULD NEVER JUDGE.

September

Life has its ups and downs, and to that end there were mice in the house and the boys drank our expensive Patron mixed with Dr Pepper, on the same day I cleaned my kitchen with a toothbrush, the Queen died, my son turned 17 and when I went grocery shopping I realized I had some kind of Psychological Long Covid, and I thought about house staging and photo filtering, and showed photos of my unstaged, unfiltered home. My son went backcountry camping and to distract myself from thoughts of giardiasis I talked about a variety of Favourite September-Related Things.

October

My son did not get giardiasis, but we had a number of run-ins with local wildlife, one of my students introduced me to the concept that Gratitude Is The First Step To Joy, and I listed off some of the things I am grateful for, Rex came into our lives and has brought us so much happiness, I shared my Week of Fall Outfits, I talked about body changes and the concept of “flattering” when it comes to clothes, and I prepared for Halloween like a crazy person. I also celebrated all things fall-related!

November

I rapidly shifted into Winter and Tiny Secret Festive Season, we celebrated our one-month Rex-aversary, I finished my Christmas shopping, I joined all the cool kids in doing a Day in the Life post, I revealed my longtime desire to join a flash mob, and my son decided to join the throngs of men who observe Movember. I talked about Christmassy favourites and just regular favourites.

December

We all started Advent calendars, and mine was a puzzle one, I went to an actual holiday party with actual people and actual fancy clothes, I answered your questions about the holidays, I took the car in for servicing and it was a huge ordeal, I revealed my favourite childhood gifts, and I celebrated my girlfriends. On Festivus I talked about my favourite holiday things and also how I jerry-rigged the furnace.

It has been quite a year! 2023 will be a year of change for me; I’m not great with change, and I love my life as it is, but change is part of life, so here we go! Time to jump in. Happy New Year to all of you. Thanks for being here on this journey with me. xo

Sisters From Other Misters

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It’s Fun Mail Season! It’s so nice to open the mailbox to see something other than flyers – which I still get because the fellow who delivers them is developmentally disabled and I will NOT put him out of a job, I just recycle them upon receipt – and the occasional request for funding. Fun Mail Season reminds me of when I was a Sweet Young Thing and used to get letters from all my pen pals, and sometimes even LOVE LETTERS from far-away would-be suitors, which makes me sound like I’m in a Jane Austen novel, but the letters often contained descriptions about parties attended and how their friends drank themselves senseless, which I am pretty sure Marianne Dashwood never had to hear about.

I have long thought of the blogging community and social media as being today’s pen pal equivalent. Some say that such friendships are Not Real, but I beg to differ. Social media has allowed me to stay in the lives of people who I would have lost touch with over time, in a different era, and that is a real gift. It is said that friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, and I used to think in this Friendship Venn Diagram, none of the circles would be overlapping. Now, though, I think they can and often do. Perhaps I am not in a Going For Coffee relationship with my best friend from first grade, but I am on Facebook with her, and that’s nice too. In this way I am in touch with my far-away cousins, people I used to work with, and almost my entire high school graduating class; it might be “connection-lite,” but it’s still connection, and it’s still valid.

One of the books I read this week spoke very disparagingly of such connections, but I think there is a real place for them in our lives. After all, not everyone can bring you a casserole in times of hardship, but words can lift you up just the same. Sometimes I think of elephants and big horned sheep, and how when one of their herd is injured or in need, the rest of them form a circle to keep them safe. That is what social media and blogging friendships feel like to me; it seems to me that when friends are experiencing real losses and hardships, particularly in the last few years, our online community gathers and forms that strong circle until the person on the inside can get back on her feet.

I have two brothers and growing up, I never wanted for a sister; in fact, I relished the role of Only Girl, and all the special treatment that came with it. As I got older and pursued education and a career in a male-dominated area, and then had sons, I started to long for a sister. I have many wonderful girlfriends and have been blessed to be a part of many beautiful circles, and I have cultivated a few friendships that I consider Chosen Sisters. These Sisters fill up my cup and visits with them are always beneficial to me; we can be completely real and open with each other, and we never judge. Two of them live far away but we touch base nearly every day (HI HANNAH, HI ALLISON), and one of them is my motivator and cheerleader on every level who I see as often as our schedules permit (HI JANET). One Sister is someone I see a few times a year with her family, and we all used to travel together pre-Covid (HI JEN). Her family feels like my family, and as our kids start to prepare to leave us with an empty nest, I hope that we can continue to travel. Another Sister is also my neighbour, and she has been a surrogate-aunt-next-door to my kids (HI TARYN).

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendships and the role that certain women play in my life lately. In my recent Ask Me Anything, Suz (HI SUZ) asked Who is your oldest friend (how many years?) and do you have one best friend/ soul sister? I just saw my oldest close friend this weekend (HI TARA)! On the very first day of grade nine, back in 1989, I noticed a new girl in homeroom, with the thickest, curliest, most beautiful red hair you have ever seen. I bounced over to her and said “Hi! I’m Nicole! I love your hair!” and we have been close friends ever since. These days we only see each other twice annually, on our birthdays, but we are able to pick up exactly where we left off. Tara gave me a baby shower when my oldest was born, and when she introduced herself to the guests, she said Nicole and I have been through our life stages together, and those words really stayed with me. It’s really special to think of friends going through the same stages at the same time over the years. We are now in the thick of Young Adult Parenting, and Almost Empty Nest Life, and perhaps at some point in the future we will be lucky enough to be Living La Vida Mother-In-Law and perhaps even Grandma World.

This brings me to my second question of the day, from Colleen (HI COLLEEN), which is a two-parter. How do you feel about your boys dating? What kind of mother-in-law and/ or grandma do you want to be? I feel just fine about my boys dating. I think they are smart and respectful and that they will make good boyfriends and, possibly, husbands. We have had only a few girlfriends and dates around here, and I think they were really great in terms of growth and learning. Many years ago a friend of mine had said conversationally in terms of her son dating that no one is ever really good enough for your kid, and I vehemently disagree with that. I think that, right there, is the reason mothers-in-law have the kind of reputation they have. I would like to be a very Here For You mother-in-law, and one who is open-minded to different ways of living and doing things. If I am lucky enough to be a grandma, I hope to be a hands-on one who is helpful. My mother was so helpful to me when the kids were small; I want to be just as helpful to my sons and their future spouses. I hope to be a good listener, and someone who meets spouses and grandchildren exactly where they are, without judgement or thoughts of how to change them.

I recently read something that said unsolicited advice is the same as judgement and that is something that I have been rolling around in my mind this week. It’s something to keep in mind for everything, I think, from navigating friendships to changing family dynamics. The key to all relationships, for me, is to stay open and to remember that there is room for everyone. From besties to random Instagram follows, the world is richer when we open up to allow people in.

Weekly Reading

Mean Baby. I had heard this was a good memoir, and then when I picked it up, I realized I had no idea who this woman is. I haven’t seen anything she’s done, but no matter. This is an extremely compelling and terribly sad book about her lifelong demons, her toxic relationships – particularly with her mother, multiple sexual assaults, alcoholism, and, finally, a diagnosis of MS. So, trigger warning? I tore through it but it is dreadfully sad. It is advertised as being “bitingly funny,” which makes me wonder about the reviewer. I found nothing in this book to be funny.

The Hotel Nantucket. Mid-December might not be the most typical time for a beach read but hey, library holds come in when library holds come in/ the heart wants what it wants. This was a very fun read about the employees and guests at a hotel in Nantucket…a haunted hotel! A friendly ghost floats around, watching the affairs and scandals that abound. It was entertaining and satisfying, with engaging characters and back stories. I’m not typically one for ghost stories, but I found this just so charming and fun. I am going to seek out more from this author, for more mood-lifting reads.

This Wild And Precious Life. I picked up this book because I heard a review about it that was positive, and also the title is taken from one of my very favourite poet’s most famous poem. And I will say that this book does contain many very good points. But. It is not often I regret the time I spend reading a book but wow, I regret reading this. The very good points – the climate crisis, building connections with people, the beauty of hiking in nature – were, for me, completely offset by the extremely off-putting and incredibly judgmental writing style of this very privileged author. As an example, the author relates MANY anecdotes in the book in which she confronts, shames, and berates strangers for not having a reusable cup in a coffee shop or consuming anything that utilizes single-use plastics. Then she talks about her post-hike ritual of buying a bag of potato chips. Presumably, the potato chips are in a single-use bag. She flies around the world to hike but rants about horrors of car ownership, then in the next chapter mentions a road trip. In a car. While I do agree with consuming less and that we should all be doing our part to combat the climate crisis, I found myself bristling constantly while reading this, which is the opposite of what this book should be doing. If the thesis is to motivate people to climate activism, then the message should not be “no matter what you do, it will never be enough, and you are a scourge to our collective environmental well-being.” I kept wanting to stop reading but I also wanted to be open-minded; in the end I do not feel that I was enlightened in the least, but instead felt that I wasted several hours that I will never get back.

It is shaping up to be a very cold week here, this week before Christmas. As I write this, it’s minus 40 with windchill, and I am wondering how long Rex is going to want to walk for. Well, I have my heated mittens and my snowpants for just such occasions. I hope wherever you are, you are staying warm, and able to seek out moments of calm in what is typically a very busy week. xo

I Am Strong, I Am Invincible, I Am Never Taking The Car In For Servicing Again

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There are some chores, or “care tasks,” that only I do around the house. For example, I and I alone obtain groceries and make dinner Every Single Day, clean the hard-water marks off the shower doors, and take the Dove soap box from the bathroom countertop and place it in the recycling when a new bar is put into the shower, no matter who puts the new bar into the shower, even though every single person walks by the recycling bin many times a day. Sometimes when I feel resentful about these little chores, I remember that there are many things that happen around the house with no intervention on my part. I don’t think that I have changed a lightbulb since the 90s, for example. The dishwasher is almost always emptied by one of my sons, sometimes very late at night when they nosing around the kitchen for a snack, but hey, I don’t have to do it. The lawn gets mowed and the sidewalks get shoveled, the gutters are cleaned, and toilet paper rolls are always replaced and, mysteriously, the old cardboard roll is recycled at least half the time, rather than left to sit on the bathroom countertop like its friend the Dove soap box.

The biggest task that I do not ever deal with, however, is vehicular maintenance. I have a mental block when it comes to cars and it is only recently that a light can come on in the car and I do NOT start breathing rapidly and blinking away tears. Between my handy younger son and my husband, the snow and all-season tires are put on, taken off, and rotated when needed, and all the maintenance is taken care of. I don’t even know how to open the hood of the car, let alone check my oil, and I do not want to learn.

About a month ago my husband took my car out and said in an alarmed way that it was overdue for an oil change. At the dealership where we bought the car in 2013, we get free oil changes for…life? I don’t know. My husband has been under a lot of stress with his job; this is nothing new, he has been under incredible stress with his job since 2018, but it has been significantly ramped up in the last few months, which is how he missed his internal alarm that somehow knows when all the cars need to get oil changes.

Well. I am woman! I am strong! I am invincible! I decided that I would call the dealership to see if we needed an appointment for an oil change, or if I could just drive through, like in the pre-Covid days. I spoke with a very nice person who looked up my car history and said that I was actually due for maintenance, and that they were booking into December, and so I scheduled an appointment for last Tuesday, December 6 at 9:00 am. I hung up feeling very proud of myself until my husband asked do we really need maintenance or were you upsold. Well. How would I know. HOW WOULD I KNOW. My feelings of self-satisfaction were immediately eclipsed by feelings of rage and resentment that this was even a question for me AFTER I CALLED THE DEALERSHIP ALL BY MYSELF BECAUSE I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR.

The car WAS due for maintenance, by the way.

Here’s a funny thing about Calgary weather, for those of you who don’t know: it is extremely volatile. Temperatures can rise and fall twenty degrees in a twenty-four hour period. We can go from mild to painfully cold and back again in no time at all. It just so happened to be a very volatile week, temperature-wise, and Tuesday just happened to be the day that was marked by Extreme Cold, Snow, and Blowing Snow. Basically, a blizzard.

My younger son needed to be at school early, as his gym class was going curling, and so I dropped him off at 8:05 in time to get the bus. It is generally a twenty-minute drive to the dealership, but conditions were bad, and I thought that even if I got to the dealership before nine, I could just drop the car early. My husband thought that the appointment would be a quick one, and that I should take a book with me in case I just wanted to stay there for an hour. That sounded great to me; an uninterrupted hour of reading, while drinking probably bad coffee? Lovely.

My twenty-minute drive turned into fifty minutes of white-knuckle driving on roads that were either black ice or with lanes completely obscured by snow. There was so much morning traffic, the sun was barely coming up, and the snow was blowing, making visibility very low. By the time I got to the dealership, it was just before nine, and I was completely frazzled. I was also appreciative of the very handsome, bearded young man who checked my car in to its appointment; it is unusual for me to encounter such a person, let alone in the morning. I asked him approximately how long it would take, thinking that if it was only an hour I’d be happy to alternate looking at him and reading my book, but he said it would be three hours and he would order me an Uber.

This is where I should note that this was my first Uber ride ever, and I have joined the modern age at last. I also knew from listening to Were You Raised By Wolves that if someone else orders an Uber for you, then even the tip is taken care of, so I was doubly excited. My Uber driver was very friendly, and we ended up in a long and involved conversation about the merits of Calgary weather versus that of Winnipeg, where he originally hailed from, as well as crime rates, housing prices, and gangs. The conversation got so involved that he missed my exit, which, you guys, maybe I need to talk less? I am aware that I am the architect of my own problems, like my ninety-minute dental appointments and, apparently, Uber drivers missing turnoffs. With the conditions, it was not easy to adjust for the wrong turn, but eventually I did make it home, close to ten o’clock.

I quickly put on all the layers to walk Rex, thinking I only had a couple of hours to do that and then shower before I would have to head out again. I zoomed around, and then waited. And waited. Three hours became four, and then five, at which point I called the dealership and they said it was still in the shop. By this time my older son was home and offered to drive me when I needed it, rather than taking an Uber. Possibly he worried that if I took another Uber, I would end up chatting too much and would never make it to the dealership. I don’t know. I waited.

Finally, nearly seven hours after dropping off the car, my son came into the living room, texting. Dad says it’s time for us to go now. Wait, what. The dealership did not call me, but instead called my husband, to tell him that the car needed brake pads along with something else, you know what, I have no idea what it was. It was probably better that they called him but still I felt slighted. What happened to being woman and hearing me roar? Then, my husband just texted my SON to tell him to take me to the dealership, and no one thought to text ME. Well, anyway, after a day of waiting around, I was happy to finally have some closure, and we went for another hair-raising drive on icy, snow-covered roads with little visibility, and now it was getting dark, too.

By the time we got there, it was well after four o’clock, and I was hoping to get home before the sun went down completely. I found my car in the lot, only to discover that it had been in the very warm shop and then taken out into the minus 23 degree weather, which meant that the windows were all completely frosted over ON THE INSIDE. Have you ever tried to scrape windows from the inside, with a long-handled scraper that is curved FOR USE ON THE OUTSIDE? It was not easy. Between my near-useless scraping, trying not to take out my own eye with the end of the snow brush, and the defrost on high, I finally had enough visibility to get back on the road, fifteen minutes later. By this point, the sunset had happened, and I was driving in the dark, in the blowing snow, on ice and in rush-hour traffic.

The sole upside was that by the time I was near home, my son was almost done wrestling practice, so I swung by the school to pick him up. While I waited, I stared out the window, completely exhausted, and vowed to never do another car maintenance thing ever again. I can roar in other ways. Maybe I’ll change a lightbulb.

Weekly Reading

Phosphorescence. After a prolonged illness and several surgeries, the author of this incredibly interesting and well-researched book started to consider phosphorescence, or the things that make the world light up. Including ourselves, from within. She discusses modern lives and the lack of nature, how paying attention to life brings joy, and introduces the concept of freudenfruede, the idea that others’ successes bring us personal happiness – the opposite of schadenfreude. As Moira from Schitts’ Creek says, when one of us shines, we all shine. Also, note for Erin (HI ERIN) there is a Yiddish word, nachas, which indicates pride in someone else’s accomplishments, usually our children. I really liked that part; there is enough for all of us, success isn’t part of a finite pie, and we can derive joy from others’ happiness. We are not in a zero-sum game, here.

One thing I did not like in this book was the author’s discussion about complaining about small problems in our lives, and how we should never do it. I get it. When you are near-death, or are experiencing a devastating illness and day-to-day agonizing pain, I am sure you would welcome all the little daily irritants as just proof that you’re alive. Nevertheless I don’t think it’s healthy to say that no one should complain ever because that seems like a recipe for ulcers and mental illness. Of course, this is coming from a person who just wrote 1500 words about taking her car in for servicing. STILL. A paper cut isn’t a broken leg, but it still hurts, and we can acknowledge that. Taking a car in for servicing during a blizzard isn’t mourning the loss of a loved one, but we can still talk about it.

Other than that, the book really was lovely. As a memoir, well, I’d say only about a third at most can be considered memoir, but it’s a fascinating look at faith, grace, justice, and the pursuit of silence. 

This Time Tomorrow.
If you know how I feel about time travel as a literary device and concept (I loathe it) you might be surprised that I picked this book up at all, as the premise is a woman travelling from her 40th birthday to her 16th, and back again. I really like the author so I read it. I still don’t like time travel but I did enjoy this book despite that. It’s thought provoking in that the trajectory of our lives can change so easily. I often think, if I had done this instead of that, would I still be here? It’s interesting to think of all the little paths that we choose and don’t choose, and how they create our lives.

Saturday was our two month Rex-aversary, and it’s hard to remember what it was like without him! Well, my reading glasses didn’t constantly get wagged off the coffee table, I guess that was what it was like. I hope you all have a cozy week – with no vehicular issues! – with lots of treats and other lovely things. xo

I Moustache You A Question

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I had my hair cut this week – and, as a complete sidebar, it was the best cut I have ever had in my life and I have never before been so happy with my hair, in all of my 47 years of life – and the salon owner was there, as he usually is. I don’t normally chat with him much but I noticed he was sporting a thick moustache. It was then that I realized that, apart from the inhabitants of the Boyhouse, I do not see many men on a daily basis.

Pre-pandemic I would have men in my yoga classes, I worked with men, I would see men in various events and meetings, and every November a large number of them would suddenly have moustaches, and I would wonder to myself did he always have that moustache, or is this a Movember thing?

Many years ago, my sons were in a karate school, and one day when I was waiting for them to be dismissed I recognized a man waiting for his son; we had been friends in university but I hadn’t seen him since. I said hi and introduced myself, and we chatted for not ten seconds before he pointed to his face and said “Excuse the moustache, I’m doing this Movember thing.”

Before we get too far into things, I want you to know, dear reader, that I am not anti-moustache. In fact, if I let things go in the hair removal department, I would certainly be sporting a handlebar myself. I think many men suit a moustache, particularly men of a certain generation: I’m thinking specifically of Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott. But moustaches in general are not my favourite, and I am working hard to keep this opinion to myself.

My younger son, for reasons known only to him, has decided to grow a moustache for the month of November. Possibly beyond November. We don’t know. Only time will tell. The last time such a shaving-mutiny happened in my house was at the very beginning of the pandemic when the boys, at that time aged 16 and 14 1/2, decided they would not shave until the pandemic was over. Well. At the time they probably thought it would be a month or maybe six weeks, and in fact, my younger son thankfully did shave around May 2020. My older son held on until the fall, when he saw a photo of himself and was horrified.

This time is different. There are many guys at the high school who have full beards, and while my son is not one of them, he does have quite a dark, relatively thick moustache, for a 17-year-old. I don’t love it but it’s his face, it’s just facial hair, and our children are their own people with their own body autonomy and ability to make their own choices. Right? I think of when I was 17; if someone had told me they didn’t like my army boots with babydoll dresses, or that some day I might regret the long, spiral permed hair with giant bangs, or that Revlon’s Love That Red lipstick was a bit much for math class at 9 in the morning, I would have wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves. So I support my son’s facial hair choice, even if I prefer his face clean-shaven.

Many, many years ago, I remember a woman on Twitter who went by the moniker PhD In Parenting, which is a pretty bold statement, in my mind. Personally, I think of myself more as a High School Graduate But In The Remedial Stream In Parenting, so this is not expert advice, but I think the key to parenting at any age, but especially teens, is to treat our kids in a way that we would also want to be treated. I often think of that poem “Your children are not your children,” because they need to make choices and decisions and live their lives in a way that might not always jive with my way.

So far it’s worked for me. I acknowledge that I am very, very fortunate in that all our personalities get along in this house, and that we have not had any major issues. This is, I think, more luck of the draw than parenting, but sometimes I get praised in a way that I don’t think I deserve.

My younger son and his moustache have been seeing a podiatrist for about six weeks now, and every time we go there it’s like a Celebration Of The Wonder Who Is My Son. It’s quite over the top and I love it. This reaction from the staff is possibly because he appears to be the only patient under 65 in the office, and hence is a bit of a novelty, but he is truly a very kind and polite person. The receptionist and nurse fawn all over him, and when he does something simple like ask them how they are doing, they gush about his manners and congratulate me on raising such an incredible young man.

I accept this praise and congratulations wholeheartedly, but I honestly think parenting is only part of the story. It’s an important part, to be sure, but so much of the way a person presents themselves to the world is on them. So much of a person is just the way they ARE, and that leads to a philosophy I strongly adhere to in both parenting and in life: we need to meet people where they are and accept them for who they are. We need to accept them even when they are different from us, even when they have our own traits that we don’t like, and even when they decide that moustaches are the way to go.

Weekly Reading

The Beauty of Living Twice. Two things: 1) Sharon Stone has led an incredibly interesting and meaningful life, 2) she is a very intelligent woman but intelligence doesn’t always translate to “good writer.” I think this book could have benefitted from a ghostwriter. Her journey is fascinating but I was very put off by the choppy writing style. I didn’t realize she had suffered a major stroke – and, apparently, massive medical incompetence to the point of malpractice – and nearly died. A lot of this book is about her healing journey, her activism, and her embrace of Buddhism. The writing kind of wrecked the story for me, sadly, because I think it’s a good one. She overcame poverty and childhood sexual and physical abuse, as well as her health issues and “being too old” to get work in Hollywood, post-stroke.

How To Keep House While Drowning. I heard an interview with this author, and I knew I wanted to read her book. She was due to have her second baby and, given that she suffered postpartum depression with her first, she set up a whole support network to help in the weeks after giving birth. She arranged for meal delivery, help with housework, for her older child to go to preschool four days a week, the works. She had the baby in February 2020. I don’t need to tell you how that affected her postpartum support.

Remember in the early days of the pandemic when we were all scrubbing our baseboards and purging our closets and using powdered Tide to “strip” the laundry? Remember all those cleaning hacks? This book is not that. This book is a very gentle, very kind guide to creating a functional living space and caring for that space, and yourself, when you feel like you are literally drowning. This is a support book for people who might feel like they just can’t get the energy to brush their hair, let alone polish their sinks. This book is written for the neurodivergent – the author herself has ADHD – and for people who are really, really struggling with executive functioning and day-to-day life, but I think that anyone can benefit from reading it. At the very least, you will come away with the idea of “moral neutrality,” which means that housework or lack thereof does not dictate what kind of a person you are. You are not a superior person if you fold your laundry and you are not inferior if you cannot wash the dishes more than once every three days. Those things are morally neutral. This book creates a feeling of kindness and compassion for ourselves and for others, and uses the words “care tasks” in place of “chores,” which has a much nicer connotation. There is also a very important discussion about environmental choices, and how most environmentalism serves able-bodied people of privilege, but doesn’t consider those who are disabled in any way. Most of all, this book gives permission to take care of yourself and your living space – in whatever form that takes – without moral judgement. It’s a quick and easy read and I highly recommend it.

Catastrophic Happiness. How did I miss this when it came out SIX YEARS AGO! I was devouring Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things when I saw that this book of essays about parenting children in the pre-teen, post-baby era existed and I never read it! Colour me embarrassed. Well, this gave me a lovely nostalgic feeling and fans will just love it. I did! It also made me breathe a sigh of relief that tantrums, childhood illnesses, and stress about am I doing this right are in the rearview mirror for me.

My husband finished all the outdoor decorations just in time before another harsh cold front descended, and the four of us put up the tree and indoor decorations, all while wearing our WWE Christmas sweaters, speaking of meeting people where they are and showing interest in teens’ own niche interests. Longtime readers may recall that at the time of our sweater acquisition the only female wrestler-themed sweater available was six sizes larger than the one I typically wear, which makes it pretty cozy. Could I have purchased a MALE wrestler-themed sweater that would have been closer to my size? I could have. But I am a firm Supporter Of Women, even for something this ridiculous. In other news, I have two new gnome decorations for the tree – one from my mom – and the house feels very hygge and festive as Old Man Winter descends once again with frigid temperatures and snow. I hope you are cozy and hygge, wherever you are. xo

Gifting

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Last week I received a complimentary “New Puppy Package” from the vet, despite the fact that Rex is not a puppy, and in it was a stuffed squeaky toy. As I paid for the visit – and the lice treatment, ew David – the vet unpackaged the toy and gave it to Rex to play with. He seemed to enjoy it immensely, and then as soon as we got home he dropped it in the snow in the backyard. I picked it up and took it inside, and he immediately went to the door with it in his mouth, to drop it back in the snow. This went on for a while. Finally, my younger son came home from school, witnessed this back-and-forth, and said “Mom, give up. He doesn’t want it in the house. You’re never going to win this.”

I don’t like to anthropomorphize, but it felt like Rex was pretending to like his gift, but once he got home he didn’t have to pretend anymore. I suppose we have all been there. For the record, I have since tried to bring it back inside, but he continues to take it outside and then ignore it. It feels like a judgement.

This brings me, strangely enough, to Christmas shopping! Quite a few people have asked how I always finish my shopping so early, and the keys to this success are a) I don’t have a lot of people to buy for, b) I start in late October, block off a few hours here and there and just push through, and c) I don’t stress out about finding the Perfect Gift, I just try to find things the recipients will like and then call it a day.

Of course, some people are easier to buy for than others. My parents, for example, are the easiest; my dad in particular has received aftershave, golf balls, or some kind of shirt on rotation for every single Christmas, Father’s Day, and birthday from me for the past thirty years or so, and he always is happy with his gift. He’s the type of person who will ostentatiously wear his shirt or aftershave the day after it is gifted, to show his appreciation, and I am HERE for it. My mom is similarly easy to shop for since I know her taste, her size, and her favourite colours and scents, and I know she’ll like anything I give her.

The guys are also fairly straightforward. They know that I am an early shopper and that I do not want the stress of the mall, or the worry that online orders won’t arrive, in December, and so they provide some ideas and then I freestyle with them. All three of them generally receive some combination of shirts, workout wear, and books, with one larger item connected to their individual interests. For example, this year my younger son is getting a new kick pedal for his drum kit. I can guess at books the three of them are interested in, but I am always appreciative of my younger son’s giving me specific ideas as to manga that he wants. Have you ever looked at the manga section in a bookstore? It’s overwhelming to say the least, and I don’t know if he wants Chainsaw Man Volume 4 or Vinland Saga 2, if you know what I’m saying. Looking at the selection of books, I feel like I was dropped into an alternate planet where I don’t know the language or the customs, and I’m just blindly groping my way through. Manga is not in my wheelhouse; neither is fantasy or sci-fi, but I scan blogs and reviews (HI ENGIE) to cobble together ideas for my older son.

There are a couple of people on my gift list who are more challenging, as I have alluded to before, and I do get a little anxious about it. Many years ago I decided I was not going to do this anymore, and I did not buy them gifts, and I will tell you that that decision was a huge mistake. What I didn’t understand was that the gifts from our household constituted essentially 90-100% of the gifts under those trees, and when I realized they had zero gifts to open on Christmas morning, I was wracked with guilt. Thinking of it now, I STILL have to close my eyes and take a deep breath. It led me to a complete shame spiral and an examination of the kind of person I want to be. I want to be a generous person, not just gift-wise, but emotionally, and so I now push through my low-level gift-giving anxiety. Basically, I just Hail Mary it, and like any Hail Mary, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but at least I tried.

On a related note, I finished the calendars! Or, the goddamn calendars. They are done, they are ordered, and they contain what I am going to whimsically call an eclectic mix of photos of old favourites, recent photos, and Rex. It turned out to be fairly fun, as I got to travel down memory lane with the old photos, and it gave me an excuse to include my Favourite Photo Of All Time:

MY HEART. This photo was taken in Palm Springs just before the 2010 Olympics, hence the t-shirts. The boys could not believe that we could be in snow-and-ice covered Calgary, get on a plane, and suddenly be somewhere where there was grass! And flowers! The miracle of travel. Honestly, I still feel that way when I travel, how incredible it is that in only a short amount of time you can arrive somewhere completely different from the place you left.

It was so cold this week; we had a few days that the temperatures dipped into the minus 20s, which is not just Cold but COLD. It’s a bit early in the season for such temperatures, and it made me think about all my friends in much warmer climates; specifically, my Florida girls (HI SUZ HI STEPHANY HI JENNY). I have been talking about one day showing up on your steps to swim in your pools and hang out on your lanais and look at your butterflies, and, in Jenny’s case, chatting about clothes and hair and shopping with your daughters, and HERE I AM. ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE.

My husband joked that if Hurricane Nicole was like Me Nicole, she would start off really strong in the morning and then get sleepy and fade to a slight breeze and a bit of rain by 7:30 pm and he wasn’t far off in that assessment. I’m glad Nicole wasn’t too bad for my friends – except for wrecking your hair with rain and wind, sorry about that – because I’d feel awful if my namesake was a real bitch.

Weekly Reading

Black Cake. This was an excellent novel about family, legacies, and traditions. It follows estranged siblings who are dealing with their mother’s death, and discovering her life story and secrets. It is so well-written and spans decades, which I absolutely love, and shows how the characters are all interconnected.

All Of This. Sometimes I read a memoir of someone who has basically the opposite life of me, and this was that. The author’s husband died of pancreatic cancer, and he was diagnosed two weeks after she had asked him for a divorce. This isn’t your typical Mourning Widow Memoir. Instead, the author talks about how toxic her marriage was and how essentially she was glad he died because it made her free. A very large chunk of the book is devoted to her healing process, which can be summed up in this way: she put herself on a dating app with the description “recently widowed and DTF.” Much of the book is about her sexual experiences and how open she was with her children about those experiences, and you know what, I don’t THINK that I am a prudish person but then I read something like this and I realize that I AM. This was well-written but I found it quite disturbing and unsettling.

A Room Called Earth. I picked this up on a whim at the library and I’m glad I did. It is such a unique and interesting book, following a young autistic woman who goes to a party. The book is the description of the things she sees, perceives, and feels. It was fascinating and really well-done.

The temperatures popped up around freezing this weekend, so my husband was able to put up the outdoor balls on the tree; I’m starting to think about decorating the house. As my son says, it is now Legal to play Christmas music, and obviously my first song was Last Christmas! It’s getting festive around here! I hope you have a festive – and, for my coastal friends, tropical storm-less – week! xo

Sudden Season Shift

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This is the time of year when my friends in milder climates are talking about crunchy leaves, and the beauty and splendor of fall, and meanwhile, we are in full-on winter!

The Weather hit November 1, which felt very appropriate for Tiny Secret Festive Season. Temperatures plummeted to the minus double-digits, a ton of snow fell, and the roads were pure chaos, as is usual for the first few snowfalls. Because I am apparently an idiot, I decided to go get groceries on Designated Grocery Day, even though that was the day of an actual blizzard, with ice under the snow and the streets not yet cleared. I will just say it was a pretty unnerving drive, going up a slippery hill with a lot of traffic, wondering if I would lose momentum and either stall out or start to slide DOWN the hill. Anyway, I made it, and to no one’s surprise there were very few customers, so it wasn’t long before I was on my way back home, vowing not to take the car out again for any reason. Of course, Rex needed a walk, so we went five kilometres in unplowed, unshovelled, ankle-deep snow, which was delightful for him and a massive leg workout for me. Win-win?

I am feeling festive, people! In a tiny and secret way. I’ve also finished most of my Christmas shopping; I still need little stocking stuffers, but I’m done, done, done. Here’s a question: do you have gift-giving anxiety? I don’t generally, but there are two people on my list who I do worry about, along the lines of is this the right thing, will they like this, what if they don’t like it. Intellectually, I think this is silly. It’s a gift! I’m trying my best to be thoughtful! When I receive a gift I am universally delighted! But emotionally, well, it’s a different story. This is possibly because last year, I thought I had hit on the exact perfect thing, FINALLY, after all these years, and I was so excited, and I really realized what all those people for whom gift giving is their love language felt like, and then I never heard a word about the gift from the recipient. So that was disheartening.

Well, no matter. The shopping is done! I tried my best! This is all we can do, and now I’m faced with The Great Wrapping And Shipping Task.

One thing I haven’t done yet is creating and ordering photo calendars. Ever since the boys were small – I can’t remember how small, because honestly 2004-2007 is just one big blur – I have made a photo calendar for each set of grandparents and one of their aunts. This year, I thought, you know what, they are too old to do this now. I mean, they are 17 and 18! I’m not even sure I have twelve photos of the two of them together in 2022 and if I do, it’s guaranteed they will feature ridiculous posturing and facial expressions. This gift, I thought, has had its day and now that day has passed.

Well. I will tell you, people, what I thought was a natural end to something brought massive consternation and angst to the involved parties. My mother (who is probably reading this, HI MOM) and mother-in-law reacted with sadness and a LOT of passive-aggressive commentary (my mother-in-law informed me that she has saved every single calendar and when she’s feeling blue she looks at them in order to see their age progression), but my dad went full-on aggressive-aggressive. Why WOULDN’T I make a calendar? Age doesn’t matter! If my mother-in-law was unhappy, and my parents were unhappy, why wouldn’t I do something, something SO EASY, to make everyone happy? Their happiness was in MY control! This continued until I finally broke down, like a prisoner being waterboarded. Fine! FINE! I’LL MAKE A GODDAMN CALENDAR! I think those were my exact words. Essentially, my dad bullied me into making another calendar, and so evidently I will be making calendars until the end of time.

Well, maybe I’ll try something new and add photos of them throughout the years; that would be pretty cute, to have toddlers next to high school graduation next to a day at the zoo. Or Rex photos! I used to put Barkley in our calendar, so this seems like a natural progression. I guess I better figure it out soon because a) I have a coupon for printing, b) I want to just finish the job and get it in the mail, and c) everyone’s happiness is depending on me so I must start immediately.

Speaking of happiness or the opposite, Time Change. It is hard to believe that this ridiculous imaginary construct is still going on, but here we are. Let’s send out all our love and good wishes to the moms of little ones who are now waking up at ungodly hours (and, let’s face it, me, because I get up between 4 and 4:30 normally, so you can imagine what my internal clock is doing) and who will be having meltdowns and falling asleep in their dinners this week (again, me). (Lisa, you okay? HI LISA) I have been ranting about Time Change for years, and so I won’t repeat myself, but for god’s sake, can we just pick a time and stick with it? There is a great article about it in National Geographic, and I love that it possibly started with a satirical letter by Benjamin Franklin; if indeed that is true, that seems fitting.

Weekly Reading

Well, one benefit of finding myself awake extremely early on a Sunday morning meant that I got some extra reading done. It was a week of two hits and a meh.

The Marriage Bureau. One of my yoga ladies loaned me this book, knowing my love for The Crown and Downton Abbey. I was under the impression that it was historical fiction but it’s not really; it’s more like a collection of anecdotes from researching the archives and old interviews of the founder of the Marriage Bureau, a matchmaking service in England in the 1940s. I did enjoy thinking about how people meet other people, and possibly marry, at that time but I didn’t love the writing style. I found it stilted and a bit clunky. It’s in development for a television series and I think it would play well on the screen, but it’s kind of tedious to read. Still, interesting to think – how did people meet during a war? During colonial times? Were these marriages successful? Out of all the marriages that resulted from the matchmaking, only two ended in divorce, which is a pretty good success rate.

Book Lovers. I will admit that I was a bit hesitant because this is such a popular book, and sometimes these popular reads do not live up to the hype for me. However! Nothing disappointing about this! It was tremendously fun and just a delight to read! It’s like a very witty, twisty Hallmark movie, in the best way possible. I loved it! What a feel-good book!

Blue Nights. Whenever I read Joan Didion, I become obsessed with Joan Didion. I end up looking at photos and reading her biography and imagining life in the Sixties, being a writer in Southern California with all the other famous writers. I imagine working at Vogue in the Fifties – think of that! Anyway. Blue Nights is a very moving book about the loss of her daughter, reflections on their life together, and her own struggles with the aging process and loss of health. It is in no way uplifting, and it is quite tragic, more in what is left unsaid than what is said, to roughly quote Hemingway (did I just quote Hemingway, obviously I am affected by Time Change).

It’s shaping up to be a very cold week here, as in “minus twenties” kind of cold. It’s officially Legwarmer Season, as well as Tiny Secret Festive Season! Whatever Season you are celebrating this week, I hope it’s warming and lovely. xo

Halloween and Teens

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Happy Halloween, everyone! Whatever your plans today, I hope they at least contain some Fun Sized chocolates. Because I am a Very Fancy Lady, I have a big bowlful of full-sized chocolate bars, and because I get weirdly paranoid about Halloween, I also have purchase three giant boxes of mini chocolate bars and fruity candy, because what if we get swarmed by children and I run out of the big chocolate bars? What if? This has never happened, but there is a first time for everything.

Does Rex want to be a cowboy for Halloween, or would he prefer a tiny sparkly sombrero? We don’t know. We also don’t know what he’s going to think of Trick-or-Treaters. He doesn’t bark when people come to the door, but he is very interested in people, so we are going to have to make sure he doesn’t accidentally bowl small Paw Patrollers over.

This is my Annual Reminder that Teens Are People Too; my very strict rule is that if someone comes to my door on Halloween, they will get a treat. There is no age limit to this, I don’t even care if there is a costume involved, and I certainly don’t have a performance or singing requirement. I’m not telling anyone else what to do with their stash of Fun-Size Kit Kats, but in this house, everyone gets a damn chocolate bar, and I don’t care if the Trick-or-Treater is 6’2″ and is just wearing regular clothes. Halloween is for everyone!

My own teens are not Trick-or-Treating and haven’t for a few years now, but they have been pilfering from my boxes of mini chocolate bars, so maybe I should buy another box, just in case?

No. I need to stay strong. I HAVE ENOUGH.

Besides which, the guys have a lot of sugar cookies to eat, because it isn’t a festivity if there aren’t cookies involved:

The snow mostly melted, just in time for more snow coming this week. Prior to that we had a lot of heavy winds, and some of the decorations took the hit, particularly our hanging mummy:

My husband was out of town for a few days, but the boys managed to fix the decorations that ended up tangled in tree branches, but the ground was so wet from all the snow that they couldn’t get the mummy to stand back up. It took some effort but they jerry-rigged it to a tree. Between that and my younger son putting the winter tires on my car, I am really celebrating having teens, even more than usual. Even when they eat into my stash of mini chocolate bars.

The guys gave me this shirt for Christmas, and it has spurred a whole series of Fuck Things around here. For example, the song September only needs to play for someone to comment “Earth, Wind, and Fire. Fuck water.” There was a restaurant in a small town that we drove past this summer, called “Breakfast Matters…Lunch Too!” at which point, my younger son said “Fuck dinner.”

Good times. Today I teach my Strength and Tone Yoga class, and I think I’m going to take my ladies some Lindors from my secret stash that no one but me knows about, which is why it still exists; maybe I’ll dig out my little witch fascinator as well. Will it stay on during downward dog? Who can say.

Weekly Reading

The Wild Iris. I have been reading this beautiful book of poetry each morning prior to my yoga practice, over the past couple of months. It’s gorgeous. Thanks so much to Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) for introducing me to the incredible Louise Gluck!

The Dictionary of Lost Words. I think it was from reading a Bill Bryson book that I realized…the Oxford English Dictionary didn’t always exist. I mean, obviously! Someone had to write it! But imagine the work that went into that. It took decades, and that is the basis of this novel; the writing of the OED. Importantly, the story deals with words the dictionary DOESN’T include. There was absolutely a bias in the writing of the dictionary; words predominantly used by women and lower classes were typically not included. (There is a whole chapter on the c-word.) Given the fascinating topic, this book should have been a home run for me, but it wasn’t. There were good parts and it was thought provoking, but the story didn’t grab me; I had a hard time getting into it and I found the characters flat. I liked it okay, but not as much as I thought I would. This book got rave reviews, so take my review with a grain of salt, but I just could not CARE about the story as it was written, although I spent a lot of time thinking about the Educated White Man bias that decided which words were important enough to end up in the dictionary.

Unmask Alice. Now, this WAS a home run for me. This book was bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Did you read Go Ask Alice when you were a teen? I sure did and it scared the bejesus out of me. I credit it for keeping me from ever trying LSD or any hard drugs, and believe me, I was no angel. Who could forget the final freak out? Who could forget her ripping out her own hair and skin because she thought she was crawling with maggots? Who could forget when she ran away, got her period, and had no feminine supplies. Not that these things are equal, but all distressing. Anyway, the “diary” was completely fake and as an adult, of course, I can see it. I mean, no one goes from acid to speed to HEROIN to…pot. What I didn’t know is how insidious the author of Go Ask Alice was. This book is nuts and it takes you on a wild ride. It covers everything from Satanism to Art Linkletter, of “Kids say the darnedest things” fame. It’s wild and the side notes are supremely funny. At the same time, the religious background of the author makes things like the homophobia of Go Ask Alice even more disturbing than it was on first read. I had no idea that the author of Go Ask Alice went on to “edit” “real diaries” of many other troubled teens, right up until before her death in the early 2000s, always pretending that those diaries were completely authentic, although they all SOMEHOW backed up her own belief system. And just as soon as you think you know what’s happening, this book takes a crazy turn at the end.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Tomorrow is the start of Tiny Secret Festive Season! My Christmas bracelet is waiting in the wings, I have festive-scented hand soaps for every sink, and the fall-themed tea towels are preparing to go back in the closet, to be replaced by all the holiday ones. It won’t be long before I bust out the Christmas playlists and songbooks.

Rex will probably be glad for some Christmas music; I have been learning Bridge Over Troubled Water and it is a BITCH with key changes and difficult fingering.

Enjoy the festivities tonight, whatever you are doing, and best of luck to all my friends starting NaBloPoMo tomorrow! I’ll do my best to keep up with you, but no promises! Have a great week. xo