Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Perimenopause Edition

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It occurred to me recently that Gen X women are the first generation to really talk freely about perimenopause and menopause, just like we were the first generation to talk about the agony and ecstasy of parenting via “mommy blogs.” There were probably some exceptions but it seems to me that our mothers’ generation kept those experiences to themselves. And our grandmothers’ generation? Forget about it. No one wanted to talk about The Change, just like no one wanted to admit that they coloured their hair, IF they coloured their hair. My maternal grandma, at my age, had short steel-grey hair and wore housedresses and no makeup. I feel fairly confident she wasn’t chatting casually about vaginal dryness.

My feeling is that everything is easier when it is shared, and also there is no such thing as too much information. Today I will be talking about my Favourite Things when it comes to managing this sweaty, roller coaster-y stage of life. We are in this together, ladies! I also hope my three male readers enjoy the ride.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Perimenopause Edition

HRT for Me

When I was in prenatal class with my first pregnancy, I was assigned a “birth plan” to create. I remember clearly that my “plan,” such as it was, would be to try to avoid an epidural or other drugs, but I wasn’t opposed to them if needed. I had never had a baby before, so I didn’t know if I would want them or not. And indeed, I did have not one but two drug-free births, but during the first one, I started screaming I can’t do it anymore, I need the drugs!, at which point the nurse told me I was nine and half centimetres dilated, it was too late, no drugs for me. The second time around was even faster, and so I never asked for any. Plus I felt like an old pro by that time, as my babies were born less than eighteen months apart, and the vag wasn’t what it once was, if you know what I’m saying.

I have always found it a little distasteful when there is smugness involved in anything birth and parenting related, because the wheel of fortune is undiscerning. My labours were four and two hours long, respectively, but if I was a woman who was in labour for many hours or even days, I would absolutely have had drugs.

I had the same feeling about hormone replacement treatment for perimenopause, namely that I would consider it if I ever felt that I needed to. And for years I didn’t need to; for the longest time, I thought not right now, I can manage without, it’s not so bad, until last April. Last April, things became unmanageable. Suddenly I was unable to get restorative sleep, I was exhausted all the time, my whole body thrummed with fatigue and, oddly, an elevated heartrate. I was having hot flashes and night sweats constantly, and I just could not cope. I didn’t want to cope. My doctor, a brilliant and progressive young woman, immediately prescribed a low dose oral estrogen and progesterone protocol. When I went to the pharmacy to pick it up, the pharmacist explained that the estrogen would help with the hot flashes and the progesterone would help me sleep. Friends, I was so tired that I just burst into relieved tears, right there at the Costco pharmacy. The pharmacist smiled knowingly. The estrogen will help with the mood swings too.

I cannot begin to explain how life-changing this has been for me. In the way that you can’t tell how bad something is until you’re out of it, I realized I was on an energetic downward trajectory for MONTHS, and now I feel like my old self again. I wake up feeling restored and refreshed, my body doesn’t ache, my plantar fasciitis cleared up completely, and I have had not ONE incident of hot flashes or night sweats. My energy is great, I feel good, my cognitive function is such that I’m not wondering if I’m slowly losing my mind. Prior to HRT I was forgetting words like “lunch.” THANK GOD FOR MODERN MEDICINE.

This is the exact same Peloton ride: the top two numbers are post-HRT, the bottom two are pre-HRT, which indicates my general level of energy.

Ritual Stacking

I never forget to take my medication, vitamins, or supplements because I always tie them to something else. I take most things with my breakfast and lunch, but progesterone needs to be taken at night. I keep this mug that my friend Joy gave me (HI JOY) next to my bathroom sink; I tie the progesterone to my nighttime flossing and brushing routine. The mug makes me smile every day, and it feels like a call-out to all us Peri Bitches.

BEAST MODE

I bought you a present! my husband said, and I excitedly bustled over to see what it was.

Some people might not be super excited about a pull-up assist, but I sure was. We are all supposed to be working on strength to counteract age-and-hormone related loss of muscle mass and to improve bone density, and I do, but wow, is it boring. I grimly do my weight training routine with as much joy as I do the vacuuming: I like the end result but it’s just another chore in the day to get there. However, I will say that this pull-up assist is SO much fun. I feel like an absolute beast.

Look at me go! I find it very satisfying that eighteen months ago I could only hang, straight-armed, for a count of ten, and now I can do pull-ups with only the lowest-level of assistance. Maybe one day I will be able to do them totally unassisted! But even if not, it is the journey, not the destination, life is a highway, etcetera.

Roll Out The Welcome Matte

If you are a Gen X woman, then you will surely remember the days of using St Ives Apricot Scrub followed by Sea Breeze toner and Cover Girl matte foundation and pressed powder. We valued a matte face, let’s put it that way, and I still do. I hate the feeling of my face being dewy and shiny; I wear pressed powder every single day and have since I first started wearing makeup. The problem is that once a woman reaches a certain age, a matte look can exacerbate certain lines and wrinkles. How to balance the two?

I absolutely love Tarte BB Blur tinted moisturizer, which provides much-needed moisture without a ton of shine. It purports to have SPF, but it doesn’t say that on the tube, and so I apply it overtop my Neutrogena Face Serum Sunscreen.

It’s still dewier than I like, so I have been following it up with Tower 28 pressed powder; I had seen this powder highly recommended, and I will tell you it is worth the extra expense. It gives a matte finish that lasts all day, without any need for touch-ups.

It also doesn’t collect in little lines and crevices, which is an important consideration for me.

Wrap It Up

I am just not ready to embrace my natural hair colour, which is white and grey. For one thing, to go au naturel would be quite the undertaking: I would have to live with increasingly longer white and grey roots with increasingly fading red ends, or I would have to cut my hair super short and just let it be white and grey, or I would have to have my colour stripped out and then somehow allow my stripped hair to blend in with the white and grey. None of these options appeal.

A mere three weeks after colouring and my roots are on display.

I usually wear my hair in a bun if I’m on my third day of the three-day wash cycle, and for the last ten days before colouring my roots are pretty noticeable. Enter the hair wrap!

I just got this new one from Scrummy Scrunchies on Etsy; it’s nice and long and I can loop it around my head a few times or let it hang down my back in a bohemian kind of way.

In addition to covering up the roots, it also covers up thinner spots. I know, no one wants to talk about thinning hair, but it happens to the best of us. The feminine mystique takes a bit of a beating during perimenopause; our skin changes, our temperatures change, we sweat more, our periods are all over the place, our vaginas dry up, our waistlines expand, we sprout moustaches and chin hairs, and OUR HAIR STARTS TO FALL OUT. I will give another plug for Nutrafol (I WISH I was sponsored, alas, I am not), which I have been taking religiously since November 2022, and which has made a significant difference in my hair density. At one point, I was actually worried I was going to go bald. My Calgary doctor – A MAN – dismissed my hair loss concerns and said to me flippantly “How many bald women do you see, really?” To which I informed him that actually, my paternal grandmother had to wear a wig because her hair fell out, DO NOT GASLIGHT ME ABOUT MY HAIR, DOCTOR.

Anyway. Nutrafol has worked wonders but the thing about a hair growth supplement is that one’s roots become en evidence much quicker. Well, I can’t simultaneously complain about rapidly-appearing roots from hair growth while taking a hair growth supplement.

Outfit of the Month

I have a tale to tell about this skirt. I was in the market for a summer skirt that was more structured than my usual, and this one from Lululemon seemed to fit the bill. It is the perfect length, it is made of a stiffer material than my athletic skirts, it has a side zipper for a sleek silhouette, it has shorts attached underneath, and it has pockets! Perfection! The reviews online indicated that it fit smaller than usual, and since half my wardrobe is from Lululemon, I very confidently ordered it one size up.

When it arrived, I could not do up the zipper. Well, that’s not true. I was able to do up the zipper, but it involved massive sucking in. Also, I ended up zipping the skin of my waist into the zipper, which was a painful insult-to-injury situation.

I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking the same thing. Did I changed sizes? I wondered euphemistically. I tried on my very fitted, structured Lululemon pants that involve buttons and zippers, but mysteriously, they fit perfectly. I tried on my jeans, and it was the same thing. It soon became evident that it was not me, it was the skirt, and so I took it back to the store and did what I should have done in the first place, which was to try it on.

And I ended up going up THREE sizes.

I mention this to illustrate that women’s clothing sizes are a joke. We tie so much of ourselves to a certain size – or weight – and then we feel badly when things don’t line up. But those numbers are just numbers. Those numbers are not US. A different number is not some kind of moral failing and it doesn’t say anything about us as a person. All the clothes in my closet fit perfectly, and there are many different sizes involved, depending on the store or brand. I will say that I felt a bit taken aback, going up three sizes for a skirt, and Younger Nicole might not have bought the skirt at all. Wouldn’t that be a shame! Forgoing something so cute for a stupid metric like a clothing size, and in any case, Lululemon tags are designed to be ripped out.

Sandals are from Skechers – comfortable shoes are a must at this stage of the game – and the top is an old one from the Gap.

The thing about perimenopause is that I feel lucky to experience it. Some women don’t make it this far! And the truth is that although some parts of it are absolutely unpleasant, we live in an age where we can talk about it, and there are medical interventions that can help with the really bothersome symptoms. I’m so happy to have a good and open doctor, I am so happy to have access to HRT, and I’m thrilled to live in a world where there are cosmetics, hair colour, and elastic waistbands. xo

Book Talk: To Finish or Not To Finish

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I remember so clearly the moment it all changed for me. It was December 2022. I closed a book, realizing that I had just wasted several hours of my life that I would never get back again.

The book in question took its title from one of my favourite poems by my very favourite poet; the book was called This One Wild and Precious Life. It had a beautiful cover. I had read a positive review. And that book remains, to this day, one of my most hated books ever. It was smug, pretentious, judgmental, hypocritical, and off-putting in every way. I was so angry when I read it and I was angrier still at myself. Because, even while I hated every single page, I FINISHED IT.

At that moment I made a vow. I was not going to push through and finish books just for the sake of finishing them. What a waste of time! The hours I spent reading This One Wild and Precious Life, I could have been reading an enjoyable book. I could have been rereading an enjoyable book. I could have been reading a marginal but inoffensive book. I could have been scrolling Instagram and looking at photos of people’s children in matching holiday jammies. I could have been doing any number of things and it would have been a better use of my time than reading that book. I vowed right then and there that I would abandon ship – I would DNF – when I wasn’t enjoying a book.

It’s not like I have always finished books that are unpleasant to me: I have never gotten through more than the first chapter of both The Shipping News and The Secret Garden, two books that seem like they should be right up my alley, but aren’t. I once picked up a book with a great back cover copy and a beautiful cover, and within the first chapter it was apparent that the story involved a father raping his sixteen-year-old daughter, and I literally threw the book across the room before sedately collecting it and walking it back to the library. I don’t even remember the title. I’m sure there are other books that I didn’t finish prior to December 2022, but they don’t stand out in my mind. The vast majority of the time, I would just slog through a book until it was done, and then feel kind of low about it.

Life is a journey and I am a work in progress, and so I haven’t always been great about this, but I have been trying to DNF more and more these days. After all, we are here for a good time, not a long time, and I am going to have a good time reading books that I love every day.

I have noticed that if I am more than a third of the way through a book I tend to push to the end, even if it is a slog. I will also push through if a friend highly recommended it, but I have definitely gotten more selective about whose recommendations I heed. A friend once told me that Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club was the BEST book she had ever read, and listen, I have read any number of bleak and depressing books in my time, but this was the bleakest and most depressing. I kept reading – she said it was the best ever! – and dear lord, do I regret my choices. I kept waiting for something, anything good to happen, and no. No. I feel depressed even thinking about it.

The moral of this story is that you should understand your friends’ reading preferences before you take on their favourite books. Otherwise, you will be explaining how you disliked the book and why, which can lead to awkwardness or, in some cases, hurt feelings. The other option would be to lie about it which, in addition to being morally suspect, will only lead to more disagreeable recommendations in the future.

I don’t have a hard and fast rule for DNFing, but my general feeling is that if I am not excited, compelled, or at least mildly interested to pick up a book, it is a candidate for abandonment. There are some themes that I find too upsetting to read about ever, namely addiction and hard drug use. I am still scarred from a scene in Trainspotting, and I didn’t even read that book. I merely flipped through it at a bookstore, read a scene which I can only describe as deeply horrifying, and set it down before backing away slowly. The fastest I abandoned a book was one that I didn’t even start: it was Matthew Perry’s memoir. Why I had picked this up, I do not know, but as I casually flipped through the pages prior to beginning it, I realized that the entire thing, start to finish, was about his extreme drug addictions. I took it back to the library that very same day.

The other big DNF trigger for me is abuse: child, sexual, or domestic. This is very dependent on both the book and my mood, but in general anything gratuitous or graphic is a non-starter for me. I have read many such books and I do not think my life has been enhanced by them in any way. Well, I suppose it has given me a more compassionate outlook, in that we don’t know what a person is going through at any given time. But I still feel incredible anger when I think of Angela’s Ashes, The Glass Castle, and Educated. I want to go back in time and NOT read them.

At the dinner table, my younger son was telling me about football star Ray Lewis’ teenage workout routine. Lewis would draw from a deck of cards and do the number of pushups associated with that card – face cards were assigned 10, 15, and 20 – and he would go through the entire deck in one workout. Wow! I said conversationally. I wonder what made him come up with that! My son looked at me. His dad used to beat up his mom, and he wanted to be strong enough to prevent it ever happening again. I started to cry while my son hastened to reassure me that Lewis bought his mom a house with his first big NFL paycheque, and that she was safe, and friends, life is just so heartbreaking at times. There are so many unspeakably sad things happening every minute all over the world. I am at a point in my life where I don’t want to read things that are also unspeakably sad.

But also, I don’t want to read things that are unspeakably boring. There are so many books out there, and so many great books to reread. Not to be grim, but if I died tomorrow, would I have wanted to spend today reading a book that I should have abandoned? I mean, hopefully I WON’T die tomorrow, but carpe diem all the same.

Weekly Reading

I know what you’re going to say, and I will swoop in to admit that yes, there is a good deal of abuse and trauma in Elizabeth Strout’s books, but they are still amongst my favourites. The abuse and trauma are all part of the backstory, and are delicately alluded to; the books themselves are heartbreaking but also so hopeful and joyful, and belong to my favourite category of books, those that delve into the extraordinary details of ordinary life. Also, I got a ton of reading done this week as my husband was on a backcountry hiking and camping trip with my older son, and my younger son was working and dogsitting. It was just me and Rex, happily reading for hours each day.

Oh William! This is the third book in the Lucy Barton series, and it involves Lucy’s relationship with William, her ex-husband. William makes a huge discovery through an ancestry subscription he receives as a gift, and his life is never the same. For the record, I NEVER want to do one of those ancestry things! For so many reasons, but mostly, I DON’T WANT TO KNOW THINGS. Anyway, this book is excellent and, like all Strout’s books, I love it.

Lucy By The Sea. The fourth in the Lucy Barton series, and kind of the last – this one takes place during the first year of the pandemic, and whoa nelly, hold onto your hats because it is a very realistic picture of that very weird time. It seems like a fever dream now. I do really like this book but maybe not quite as much as the rest of the series, because it reminds me of not seeing or hugging people for so long, having schools closed, etc. But it is still a beautifully-written book which gave me much to think about, even with that awful lockdown year six years in the rearview mirror. Remember watching “the numbers?” God.

Tell Me Everything. This takes place after Lucy By The Sea, so it’s kind of, but not really part of the series. The first time I read this book, I was just overwhelmed with the happy feeling that it was a love letter to Strout fans. All of the characters for all her books – up to that point – were featured, and it is a beautiful story of connection and love. What hit me on the reread was the poignancy of an emotional affair-that-isn’t-really-an-affair. The book centres around a friendship that is ALMOST, but not quite, more than a friendship. It is also a quiet book about people, the life they lead, and how we all crave real connections. I love this book very much. 

To Kill A Mockingbird. Does it get any better than this beautiful story of humanity and community, of people trying to make change in a rigid and racist society? I love it so much. I am a person who rarely, rarely cries while reading, but the penultimate chapter brings a lump to my throat every single time I read it. This book contains two of my favourite lines ever written: “…I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn’t much else for us to learn, except maybe algebra,” and “I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can’t do anything about them.”

And with that, Reread Fortnight has ended! My library holds are starting to come in and I have my dear friend Maya’s book to read as well (HI MAYA). We had rain this weekend, actual rain, for the first time in months. The air feels clear and fresh, the garden and farm market are full of deliciousness, and I baked a cake yesterday. Life is good. xo

Book Talk: Rereading

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I was curled up on the couch when my younger son walked by and made a woof sound. You had some pretty rough reads, hey? he said. I looked at him, puzzled, and he nodded toward the copy of Commonwealth on the table beside me. You’re reading Ann Patchett, he said. You reread your favourites when you’ve read a bunch of sad books in a row. He was silent for a moment, contemplating. Or bad books, he added.

You know, you go through life thinking that to your kids your personality is “Mom,” but then sometimes they surprise you by knowing your very soul.

He is right; that is exactly what I do if I have had too many depressing or heavy books in a row, or if I have had too many “how did this get published” books in a row. But in this case, it was neither. My post-travel library book flood had slowed to a trickle and, like parts of the creek beside which we walk every day, dried up completely.

The creek is flowing, but barely. Those rocks are not usually visible.

So I thought I would take this opportunity for a little rereading. I love rereading. If I own a book, it’s because I want to read it more than once. The majority of the books on my shelves have been read at least twice, some many times more.

The many-multiple rereads shelves.
Also many-multiple reread shelves, but with childhood books included!

Someone asked me once why I would ever reread a book; after all, I know what’s going to happen, and there are so many unread books out there. To that I will respond that I certainly read more than my share of new books, and I find great joy and comfort in revisiting beautiful phrases, scenes, characters, and stories. I’m not a plot-driven person, and so it doesn’t matter to me if I already know the twist: I want to revel in the beauty of the words while we get there.

Because I reread so much and so frequently, certain scenes and sentences are constantly thrumming through my mind. I never pick strawberries without thinking of Mrs Elton in Emma, for example, and I am constantly mentally quoting from A Diary of a Provincial Lady. …that to live as I do, without any distractions, only leads to madness in the end. I will think of my poor nerves in the way of Mrs Bennett, the jelly won’t jell in the way of Meg March/ Brooke in Little Women when things are not going as expected. I always think of Grace Marks in Alias Grace when I have a perfect McIntosh apple: if I eat it, then it will be gone. My head is just generally a weird and wild swamp of song lyrics and literary examples at any given time of the day.

This quote is the best, not just because at face value it’s true, but because it is attributed to Catherine Bingley. If you know, you know.

I do not like lending out my books because I am very emotionally attached to them, but I am certainly not precious about them myself. I think a cracked spine and stained pages show that a book, like the Velveteen Rabbit, is truly loved. Some books I have read until they have literally fallen apart, which requires delicacy when picking them up again.

Two very different and very loved books. Shelley was courtesy of Grandma Fern’s paperback bookshelves.

One of my clearest childhood memories is when I was seven, just after my younger brother was born: my older brother and I were staying with my aunt at that time, and in order to escape from my pesty and ill-behaved young cousin, I read and reread A Little Princess over and over. It truly is a beautiful book that I have reread as an adult, and I will say that not only is it great in terms of story and clothing descriptions – a thing I value deeply in a book – but it is also a very interesting look at the plight of the poor and the wild class divisions in Victorian England. I have such love and sentimental attachment to A Little Princess, and I will hear no dissenters!

I feel similarly attached and sentimental about Little Women. I first read this at my grandparents’, who had a whole collection of these hard cover double books, meaning there would be two books in one.

Little Women was literally the only book in this huge collection that centred around girls, and I have, from day one, been almost exclusively interested in female-centred stories. The lives of girls and women, if you will. If I read Little Women once, I read it fifty times. I was deeply interested in the above-mentioned Meg: her preparations for the coming-out ball, the loss of her glove, and the scenes which are supposed to be instructive about vanity but I deeply identified with, her being dressed up and having champagne at the ball, and her desire for a new dress. I always thought that her husband was a total dolt, and that she could have done so much better, although this takes place during and after the American Civil War, so maybe she couldn’t. There probably wasn’t a whole lot to choose from.

When I think of my childhood, I think of all the time I spent reading and rereading favourite books, and as an adult, I find myself doing the same. I certainly had access to new books through the library, but I treasured so much diving back into a book I knew and loved. To this day, I can feel myself sink into happiness at the first lines, and then becoming thrilled anew when a beloved character is introduced or the plot turns. It’s such a great feeling.

Speaking of first lines, do you have any favourites? My top three are: Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge, It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife, and Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents!

I am dedicating this week and the next to rereading, with the hope that no library holds come in, in the meantime.

Weekly Reading

Single, Carefree, Mellow. This short story collection, which I first read in 2021 and have read twice more since, gives me so much joy. What can I say, everything Katherine Heiny writes is pure gold. Some of the stories are connected and some aren’t, but every single one of them is a literary gift of pure delight. She’s just so witty and clever, and I was laughing so hard that I kind of stopped breathing and started to sound like some sort of seal. As with every one of her books, I have been going back and rereading paragraphs and pages that are especially wonderful, including but not limited to the following: “She collects garden gnomes,” Nina said. “You had an affair with someone who collects garden gnomes.” David sighed. “I know there’s that side of her,” he said. “But I never saw that.” Every single character is perfect, so much is conveyed in a single short story. I will never stop being completely in love with this book. 

Speaking of garden gnomes, dear reader Heidi (HI HEIDI) sent me this one all the way from Germany. Of course I named him Wolfgang, and now he hangs happily in my spirea shrub. Thank you, Heidi! I love him!

I should probably point out that I am NOT having an affair, let’s not draw too many parallels.

Commonwealth. The book that spurred this post! In addition to being a Katherine Heiny fangirl, I am also a hardcore Ann Patchett fangirl, and so I decided to revisit this beautiful novel about a blended family and how it is affected by an unspeakable tragedy. This book also asks: to whom do stories belong? It is SO well-written and emotive that it moves me deeply in so many ways every time I read it. Every character is truly an entire book unto themselves, which is just like people, I suppose.

My Name Is Lucy Barton. Why not make it three authors of which I fangirl constantly? I adore Elizabeth Strout, and her style of writing is so spare, beautiful, and wrenching, which really describes this entire book. It is heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. It’s about poverty and trauma, isolation and abuse, but it’s also about escape and the ties that bind. Love is complicated, families are complicated, this book is complicated. I love it.

Anything Is Possible. The second book in the Lucy Barton series delves into all the people that Lucy and her mother chat about in the first book. If you’ve ever wondered whatever happened to so-and-so in your own life, you will appreciate this look into the various people of Lucy’s youth and where they ended up. I find it so interesting when people I knew “back when” end up living entirely unexpected existences. Well, the truth is I’m interested in where everyone ends up, unexpected or not, and so I loved this book.

I’ve decided to make Book Talk a mini-series until the end of the month. After all, there’s not much else to chat about, unless you want a minute-by-minute garden update! (or DO you?) Next week I’ll be talking about the opposite of rereading: DNFing, and then I will talk about genres, choosing what books to read, and making the time to curl up with a book. I’d love it if you’d join in and let me know if you are a rereader, and if so, what are your favourites? I’d love to hear about them. xo

I Just Called To Say I Love You

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I had the most delightful, friend-filled week. It started with a visit from my friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE). Suzanne is a very talented writer and a dear friend, and being able to see her in person, as opposed to on a screen, was wonderful. I can’t believe you’re HERE, I kept saying, and I couldn’t. It felt too good to be true! And for those of you who follow and read her beautiful words, let me tell you something: this woman is a class act, she is absolutely gorgeous inside and out. I adore her! Then Suzanne left and before I could become bereft, my friend Tara (HI TARA) arrived. Tara and I have been the best of friends since the first day of grade nine, and we have gone through all the big life stages together. There is something just so special about that. She’s the sister I never had.

The visits were perfect, marred only by the thick blanket of smoke that billowed in on Monday, when Suzanne arrived, and didn’t billow out until Friday night, after Tara left, albeit briefly. It has billowed back in, as there are some pretty serious fires fairly close to us right now. The air became so bad that my sons, both of whom work outdoors, texted me photos of them wearing masks, along with some wry Covid-era commentary. I told them they were a couple of sheeple before stepping into the shower to scrub the smoke smell out of my hair and skin, the yellowish rinse water swirling at my feet.

For most of the pandemic, I found myself reciting the Serenity Prayer like a mantra, and I do that now with forest fire season.

I was so honoured that my friends came so far to see little old me – through the smoke no less! – and as I was thinking of my luckiness, I came across this newsletter talking about the five-year stranger phenomenon. It was the first time I had heard this theory, but I’m well aware of the concept that friendships can fade when our lives cease to physically or mentally overlap, or when we change and grow. I have always subscribed to the theory that people come into your life for a reason, season, or lifetime, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel a pang when a friendship fades.

It’s so easy to keep in touch these days, and maybe it is too easy. It’s easy to feel like we really know a person while looking at their social media highlight reel, but relationships with any depth require more effort than that. However, the fact is that I love these highlight reels, I love seeing updates from people who would otherwise have faded from my life. I feel sure I would have lost touch with the girl I volunteered with at the nursing home when we were fifteen, and now I am celebrating her extensive travel and upcoming nuptials. I’ve become friends with former yoga students and people I have met while travelling, reconnected with people from grad school, and have become close with a cousin (HI KAREN) through our shared love of books and dogs, all due to social media. I love that I have these tools to communicate, but I admit that sometimes they can take the place of true heart-to-heart connection, the kind of intimacy and closeness we all need from our friends. I also admit that they can sometimes reveal unsettling information about a person, information that I was happier not having, from pandemics to politics and everything in-between. Because these relationships are often surface level, I can compartmentalize, but I would still rather not know if someone is using the term sheeple unironically.

My husband has a friend who loathes texting, so much so that he will return any text with a phone call. The more I think about this, the more I like it. Not that I’m going to do this – it’s a little much to make a constant stream of phone calls all day long in response to, say, someone’s Connections results – but I do like hearing my friends’ voices. Whereas I used to worry that a phone call would interrupt their day, I now think well, they can NOT answer if it’s a bother. And sometimes it IS a bother, and they don’t answer, and that’s okay. They can listen to my I just called to say I love you voice mails, and call back when and if they are so inclined.

Many years ago, I adopted a mindset reframe that I had read about: instead of saying I don’t have time for X, I say X is not a priority for me, and then I see how I feel about that. If I feel aghast, and I reassure myself that no, no, no, X really IS a priority, then I make the time. If I feel it is a true statement, then I just let it go. Not everything can be prioritized! A big priority for me is to show up for my friends. Sometimes it’s not physically possible; one of my best friends lives in Halifax (HI HANNAH), which is just about as far away as you can get without leaving the country or falling into the ocean. But we must have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, and be grateful for modern technology that allows us to still communicate about everything from tulip murderers to the weird guy who talks angrily on Facetime with no headphones at the gym.

It’s not the new year, but I have a resolution to make more phone calls, send more cards and messages, and physically be there whenever possible. Have the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know that placing a phone call on speaker in a public place is both an act of aggression and an invitation for me to eavesdrop on every word.

Weekly Reading

Kin. This book literally took my breath away several times. I will admit I went into it a bit apprehensively, being the only person I know who didn’t enjoy this author’s acclaimed An American Marriage. But wow, this book! It is a dual perspective between two “cradle friends,” motherless girls who grew up together but whose lives took two very different paths as adults. It’s a story about the deepest kind of friendship, the kind of friendship that is more than family, the kind of friendship in which each person is truly known. It’s immersive and evocative, heartbreaking and hopeful, viscerally beautiful and moving. I loved this so very much.

The Big M. For us ladies of a certain age comes this collection of essays about THE CHANGE. It’s an inspiring and empowering collection about the physical, mental, and emotional changes that come during perimenopause and the menopause transition. Some of the essays were absolutely great, some less so, but all in all a good collection.

It looks to be a smokey week around here, with fire fighters working around the clock. Meanwhile, I will just be practicing serenity and peering at the sky, optimistically thinking I might see a patch of blue. Have a lovely week, friends. Stay safe. xo

Midsummer Plant Murders

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We have reached the point in the summer where, with the exception of a couple of rows of very hardy kale, all my greens have bolted in the heat, necessitating their removal from the garden. I am reduced to shopping at the farm market for all my leafy green needs; how they are keeping them from bolting, I have no idea, but I feel like shade is involved. What the garden is lacking in greens, it is more than making up for in zucchinis and raspberries, as well as tomatoes. I am drowning in tomatoes.

But as god is my witness, I will never plant bell peppers again. There are two reasons for this, and the first is because we consume far more peppers than I could possibly grow, unlike the aforementioned produce, which exceeds even the outside amount that one family can reasonably consume. The other reason is that, for the second year in a row, the peppers have been foiled by some manner of animal, most likely a rat. Or, as seems to be the case, several rats.

Let’s pause for a moment, Winston Smith-style, to shudder.

Last year, almost every single bell pepper had been gnawed on precisely when it would have been happily picked and consumed by me, and this year has seen every one disappear in such a way. But worse than that was that Something – Ratty McRatface, I presume – gnawed off TWO of my plants, leaving a mere three inch stick where a healthy plant once was. The thing that really gets me is that there was no pepper on those plants at all, and the plants themselves were just strewn merrily in the garden box. I am sensitive with regards to animals, and if one was EATING something, I would feel low-level sympathy, even while being annoyed at the bell pepper disappearance. But this is not that. This is just wanton destruction of plants. It’s plant murder.

Three weeks post-murder attempt.

Is the rat an out-of-control juvenile delinquent? Is this some kind of rat frat party? Maybe. It’s now set its sights on my smaller zinnias, because a few of them have also been snipped off at three-inch level.

I am typically a live-and-let-live girl when it comes to local wildlife, but I draw the line at a) the house, and b) the garden, especially the flowers.

And by “war,” I mean I will be glaring sadly and impotently at the destruction. Well, at least they have not touched the big zinnias or nasturtiums, which is important, as they are keeping those garden boxes busy since the Loss of the Greens. I like to have something nice to look at while I’m enjoying my afternoon read and sip.

Speaking of which, I was in the grocery store buying San Pellegrino, when I came across this.

I stared at it for many moments. Carl…Jung? The…Swiss psychiatrist? The…father of analytical psychology? Isn’t he…dead? Why is he…I thought that maybe I had conflated names somehow. I do that often. I confuse Tom Holland with Tom Hiddleston, Burt Lancaster with Burt Reynolds. I even once talked about Jimmy Page when I meant Jimmy Buffett. It wasn’t until I read Doppelganger in 2024 that I realized that – instead of confusing Naomi Wolff and Naomi Klein, which is the theme of the book – I had been conflating Naomi Klein and the 1970s YA author NORMA Klein for decades. I didn’t know Naomi Klein was a Canadian! I didn’t know she was a social activist! The author of Sunshine? That book about the woman with cancer?

As it turns out there are two famous Carl Jungs: the tell me your dreams Carl Jung, and Carl Jung the German non-alcoholic winemaker. I cannot fault myself for conflating the two because who knew? Certainly not me. And I certainly did not purchase any of the product, because although a non-alcoholic cooler is acceptable to me, a non-alcoholic wine is just a bridge too far.

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week, and that was The Kiss Quotient. My sweet friend Stephany (HI STEPHANY) had mentioned it as one of her favourite romances, and – this was the detail that sealed the deal for me – the protagonist is an econometrician. AN ECONOMETRICIAN. My people! It immediately evoked many happy memories of running regressions, data cleaning, and economic modelling. I was so excited that I even pulled out my master’s thesis, which I haven’t looked at for a few decades at least.

But, unsurprisingly for a romance, there was very little econometrics involved. WHO KNEW. Who knew no one else is interested in econometrics? The romance itself was a little spicy for my tastes, and it was a gender-swapped Pretty Woman-type story. I have to tell you that Pretty Woman is one of my least favourite movies of all time – ALL TIME – and so I sadly put the book aside and hung my head in shame as I told Stephany I had to DNF. She was so lovely and gracious, which reminded me to be lovely and gracious when and if someone DNFs my favourite books. Even though that book was not for me, I am happy that an econometrician was the sexy star of a romance. Justice for econometricians!

Speaking of books I maybe should have DNF’d:

The Names. What’s in a name, and can a name change the trajectory of a life? That is the premise of this book, which involves three parallel universes over a period of thirty-five years, based on the name given to the baby boy of a family. I will say that I found this book very difficult to read, and not just because it deals with terrible domestic abuse, but also because the middle was a bit of a slog to get through. It is not an uplifting book, although the prose is quite lyrical. It made me think of all the wasted time and lives, of all the sadnesses of the world, of how lives can be short or long but often are full of trauma and hardship. I can appreciate the book from a literary point of view, but from an emotional one I did not enjoy it. 

Sunshine Nails. From the author of Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead! In other words, Canadian author alert! This story follows an immigrant family’s struggle to keep their nail salon open when a fancy chain day spa opens up right across the street. It’s a story of resilience, family ties, and the importance of community. The bravery of people who leave their home countries to try to make a better life for themselves and their families – including the ones left at home – is astonishing to me. This story has a lot of heart, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Good People. My reading certainly got better as the week went on because wow! This is not only one of the best books I’ve read all year, it’s one of the best books I’ve read ever. It is written in an original way: a series of interviews, documentary-style, about the death of a teen girl. Information about the family involved is slowly released throughout the interviews, and it is incredibly engrossing and compelling. I loved it so much. It is, in my opinion, a perfect book.

I have such an exciting week ahead of me. I have not one but TWO sets of out-of-town visitors coming in, and I could not be happier. If you need me, I will be floating around in a cloud of joy. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Summer Essentials Edition

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I will confess that for many years, I thought the change of the seasons was highly overrated. In my defense, I was living in Calgary, where winter is endless, spring and fall are so short they could be considered almost nonexistent, and summer was marked by cold winds, thunderstorms, hail, and mosquitoes. I could really imagine myself living in a place like Maui, where the annual temperature fluctuation was less than ten degrees, and the sun shone happily every day.

Now I’m living in a place in which each season really is three months, and each builds into the next gradually, rather than going straight from Snow to Mosquitoes. I can really appreciate the beauty in each season and what they have to offer. That said, I am truly a Summer Girl at heart.

I love summer. I love the ease of getting dressed, I love wearing skorts and sandals, I love that “stepping into an oven” feeling when I come out of an air-conditioned house, I love the abundance of fresh produce, I love my garden, I love my flowers, I love it all! I don’t love the occasional smokey skies and the existential angst of being in a drought and thinking about the state of the world, but you know what, there is no sense in being anxious about something I can do almost nothing about. Stuff your worries in a sack, and then take that sack and frolic in the sunshine. Or, as Mary Oliver says, take your old body out in the morning and sing.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Summer Essentials Edition

Hello Hawaii

Recently my dear friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) was talking about “signature scents,” and I realized that in summer, my signature scent is Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen.

I love that coconutty floral scent, and I also love how it adds a little shimmer to my skin, in addition to being a great sun protectant. On the parts of my body that are not exposed to the sun, I have been using Nivea “Firming” lotion this summer, and I would like to go on the record to say that “firming” is too tall an order for a bottle of lotion. However, it is a really good moisturizer, with a light scent that allows the Hawaiian Tropic to shine through.

You Otter Know

Speaking of Hawaii, some of you might remember that we took many spring break vacations to Maui when the boys were younger.

2012

Since the boys were fairly young, and since Maui is a pretty expensive place, we would always go to Costco and the grocery store, and make most of our meals at the condo we would rent. And if you are a Canadian going into a US grocery store, no doubt you will be able to relate to our feelings of awe and wonder when we did so. US grocery stores have an incredible variety of cereals, cookies, and other snack foods, in comparison with those in the Great White North. As a brief aside, I clearly remember “going across the line” when I was a very young child, and trying a Twinkie for the first time. I was so excited. Twinkies were not then available in Canada, but they were heavily advertised in Archie comics, and I Could Not Wait to try one. Imagine, then, my grave disappointment when first it hit my lips. The idea was better than the execution.

Anyway, Maui grocery stores were literal heaven for my children, who had never seen such a vast array of packaged goods, like Young Nicole as regards Hostess snack cakes. Nowhere was this wide variety more apparent than in the frozen treat aisle, where my children were introduced to Otter Pops. They had, of course, had Mr Freeze and other such treats, but we were incredibly charmed by Otter Pops, with their clever names and array of flavours. Sir Isaac Lime! Little Orphan Orange! Poncho Punch!

Fast forward to this summer, when I was in Costco and I saw Otter Pops! I immediately and nostalgically texted our family chain, asking if I should buy some, expecting that I would get, at best, a “ha ha” reaction. But no! My son said “sure” and to make a very long and quite uninteresting story short, we have been enjoying Louie Bloo Raspberry and his friends as after dinner treats.

I like that they don’t have food colouring in them anymore, I like that they are small enough to be just that tiny bit of sweetness that is sometimes required after dinner, and I love that each treat reminds me of those vacations with the boys.

2013
2014
2014

Everything Happens For A Riesling

On the topic of refreshing treats, let’s talk wine. I am a red wine girl, but in the summer, I love a crisp glass of white. I love buying local, and I cannot get any more local than Tantalus Vineyards. Their 2025 Riesling is award-winning and highly rated, and it’s a perfect drink for a Friday on the deck.

Clawing Back

I love a boozy beverage or glass of wine as much as the next person, but sometimes I want a little something that is nonalcoholic. My friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) introduced me to NA White Claw.

I was a bit skeptical as I don’t like the regular White Claw, but these are delicious and refreshing. The mango is a great flavour, as are lime and black cherry.

Getting Off

If you are having an outdoor event, you should invite me. It’s an insurance against mosquito bites, because I will get them all. If there is a single mosquito within a four kilometre radius, it is going to find me and bite me, and then the bite will swell enormously only to eventually fade into a purple welt and, later, a bruise. I am so sexy and irresistible to mosquitoes and any other biting insect. They love me. They cannot get enough of me. I am Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania, and mosquitoes are my screaming fans, all wanting a little piece of me and my blood. My husband sometimes victim blames me for “not wearing proper clothing” because I am often, like a dance hall girl in the Yukon gold rush, boldly exposing my ankles and arms. But I will say the victim blaming is unfair, as clothing is only a small hurdle for mosquitoes to conquer; they can and do bite right through such impermeable articles as jeans and raincoats. If you are siding with my husband right now, claiming that it is not possible, let me assure you that it IS. I have had bites on both my bum and my mid back while wearing such clothing, and I promise I did not expose those parts of my body. I think the only clothing solution would be to don a full-on beekeeper-style outfit, and I am just not willing to do that to walk the dog.

I have tried natural remedies, I have tried every hippie, plant-based, essential oil-infused product there is, and every time, every single time I have been immediately swarmed. There is only one thing I will use, and it’s DEET.

Listen, I don’t love spraying my entire body with Deep Woods Off every morning before our walk, but I would rather bathe in DEET than be covered in welts, bruises, and bites, downing Benedryl every night just to get some relief. I always shower post-walk-and-garden, and so if I’m low-key poisoning myself, it’s only for a few hours each day. Even with the afore-mentioned drought, mosquitoes still abound in the early morning near the shady creek where we walk. Or, at least a few abound. Yesterday I thought it had been hot and dry enough that I would forgo the Deep Woods, and sure enough, I have three enormous, very itchy bites. They may have been the only three mosquitoes in the valley, but they found me. At this rate I will be Deep Woods-ing myself until fall.

The creek is practically nonexistent, where are the mosquitoes coming from? Rex doesn’t know.

Outfit of the Month

Recently my friend Birchie (HI BIRCHIE) said just because we don’t live near the ocean doesn’t mean we can’t go to the beach, which I took as a sexual euphemism of some sort. I don’t know what sort. But of course what she meant was that lake beaches are good beaches, and I have many such at my disposal.

When we used to come here on summer vacation, we would take the boys to the beach almost every day. Then, we moved here, and I rarely, if ever, go to the beach. I walk adjacent to the beach frequently. I drive by the beach all the time. But I don’t go, and that is a real shame.

My friend Joy (HI JOY) suggested a picnic and visit at the beach, and I just can’t believe we don’t do this more often. She also kindly took these outfit photos: comfy coverup dress from La Vie En Rose, and Skecher sandals.

The handkerchief tankini top and swim bottoms are also from La Vie En Rose. I find they always have great end-of-season sales, and I have gotten a lot of mix-and-match pieces very inexpensively over the years. Plus, it’s a Canadian company!

Summer is half over already! I am going to take my old body out into the morning and sing. I hope you have had a beautiful July, my friends. What are your favourites this month? Tell me everything. xo

Don’t tell me what to do, whimsical rock!

It’s Bananas

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Some people righteously boycott certain shopping experiences or coffee shops, but my line in the sand is the phenomenon known as the celebrity podcast. I quite smugly and obnoxiously refuse, on the grounds that celebrity podcasts have pushed out smaller, independent podcasts. I will not have it. I will not have it! You can keep your big, showy podcasts with excessive amounts of advertising, and I will be over here listening to two Australian women sharing their hatred for sunflowers, or two Irish women deep diving into Sweet Valley High.

But of course, there is always an exception, and for me that exception is Wiser Than Me, wherein Julia Louis-Dreyfus interviews older women who are celebrities. And now I will tell you that there is an exception to the exception; I very much enjoy these interviews and Julia’s style with one important caveat, which I will get to shortly.

Recently she interviewed Cyndi Lauper, of whom I have been a fan since I was eight years old, when She’s So Unusual was released, and this episode did not disappoint. I adored listening to her heavy Brooklyn accent – whaddya wanna know? – relate her take on life and zest for standing up for what she believes in. But most of all, I loved that she called out Julia for the question that I absolutely loathe, and grit my teeth about during every one of her interviews.

At the beginning of every interview, Julia asks if the woman is comfortable divulging her real age, and after that, she asks how old do you feel? My love for Cyndi Lauper was like the Grinch’s heart, exploding out of the little box it had been in before, as she called out the question as the bullshit garbage it is. When Julia expressed surprise that Cyndi, who is 72, said she feels 72, she replied:

Well, here’s what I think. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit that they give you these numbers and they tell you what you’re supposed to do at what age and what age you’re supposed to feel like this and what age you’re supposed to feel like that and I think it’s a load of crap.

I love her. How old do we FEEL? I don’t know about you, but I feel 51, because THIS IS WHAT FIFTY-ONE FEELS LIKE. Can we please normalise the idea that it’s okay to be the age we are and, relatedly, that how we feel does not need to correlate to a number? If I said I felt 92, the immediate thought would be that I frailly had one foot in the grave, not that I felt wise and gentle with the years. If I said I felt 22, it would be assumed that I was vibrant and sexy, and not riddled with self-doubt and insecurity. I very much dislike that “old” is used pejoratively, and “young” is the opposite. Listen, I get it, I get that there are things that are objectively difficult about aging, but also, it’s not like being young is always a bag of laughs, see also last week’s rant about Monica Lewinsky’s youthful indiscretion and the resulting turmoil for that poor young woman. I would never, ever trade my menopausal tum-tum for my previously stellar flat stomach if it meant I had to go back in time. I LIKE having these years behind me, I LIKE not second-guessing myself, I LIKE the feeling of having experience and knowledge and that there is more of that to come. Sure, I may no longer be able to put my legs behind my bed or run a sub-eight minute mile – or CAN I? I haven’t tried for a while – but that’s a small trade-off for this glorious peace of mind, this who-gives-a-shit attitude, the feeling that this is who I am, take it or leave it.

It’s like bananas.

I don’t mean it IS bananas, although it is, the worship of youth culture. I mean that we are literally like bananas. God bless the banana, I say, what a versatile and wonderful fruit. Bananas are delicious when they are still a bit greenish, they make a great smoothie when they are yellow and frozen, and when they become black and mushy and kind of grody, they make the absolute best baked goods. I ask you, what can’t a banana do? They are full of vitamins, potassium, iron, and fibre, they have electrolytes and prebiotics, they are essentially a superfood. They are reliably inexpensive and available year-round, and if you are travelling and are concerned about getting explosive diarrhea from a piece of fruit? Have a banana! They come pre-wrapped! You can pretend to make a phone call with them, you can make your mouth into a giant banana smile, and you can look deeply into your husband’s eyes while eating them, so he can uncomfortably look away.

There is a time and place for every stage of a banana’s life.

There is no judgement about which stage is better – they are all useful and delicious in their own way. All hail the humble banana, and all hail us, in all our glory, no matter what stage we are in. I feel like I am in the banana ice cream stage: kind of sweet and soft, good for a dessert, better with some chocolate sauce and Reece’s Pieces…you know what, I’m not sure this metaphor is working anymore.

Weekly Reading

The Elegance of the Hedgehog. This interesting little book involves a middle aged concierge in an expensive Parisian hotel particulier and a 12-year-old inhabitant of said building, both of whom hide their extensive, and kind of pretentious, intelligence in order to fit into society’s expectations for them. The concierge pretends to like things like cabbage and television – so pedestrian! – so that no one will know she’s a brilliant autodidact, while the 12-year-old has decided that privileged life has no meaning, and so she is going to set fire to the building and kill herself by her thirteenth birthday. Talk about preteen angst. When an intelligent Japanese gentleman moves into the building, things start to change for both of them; discoveries are made and friendships are created. It’s a statement on class-consciousness, to be sure, as well as the beauty of life and the power of connection. 

Writers and Lovers. I first read this gorgeously-written book in 2022, and I wanted to reread it concurrently with the author’s latest, Heart the Lover, which is, interestingly, both a prequel and a sequel to Writers and Lovers. Alas, due to library holds, the concurrent read didn’t work out, but I think that’s for the better: I think the books work so beautifully stand-alone, with the “oh, THAT’S what happened” feeling of Heart the Lover. A concurrent read would highlight a big inconsistency with one of the major plot points of Heart the Lover, when compared with the character of Casey in Writers and Lovers. I know from an interview with Lily King that the big plot point was a late addition to one of the final drafts, and I like knowing that – I like knowing the process, and I think that plot point added so much to Heart the Lover, even if that means that some character details don’t stand up to close reading scrutiny. The tl;dr here is that I LOVE THIS BOOK and I also loved Heart the Lover, and I think they should be read and appreciated separately. I loved Writers and Lovers when I read it in 2022, and I love it even more now. It hit me differently this time around and affected me deeply.

Interestingly, I went to look up my 2022 review and it is in a post entitled “Psychological Long Covid” in which I talk about panicking at the grocery store, hoarding lemon juice, and also – callback to podcasts – eviscerate a book written by an obnoxious and privileged podcaster. Blog posts are such time capsules! And speaking of time capsules!

The Remains of the Day. Wow, this book. This book! I loved it so much. It combines two of my major interests: the staffing and running of great English houses, and the political ideologies and events in the years between the World Wars, hashtag I am a War History Buff Now. This book should be held up as the gold standard for showing, not telling. The narrator, who seems kind of like a robot, personality-wise, is not exactly unreliable, but the information we receive is limited and much is concealed. Slowly, we begin to see a clearer picture of both the butler’s life, and also the life of his employer. This is a slow burn and is really, really remarkable in the writing style. It is desperately sad and contains incredible insight. The quote that might stay with me forever is this: “You’ve got to enjoy yourself. The evening’s the best part of the day. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it. That’s how I look at it. Ask anybody, they’ll all tell you. The evening’s the best part of the day.” As a metaphor, it’s incredible. As a book, it’s absolutely excellent. As a part of this blog post, it’s perfect.

My husband was camping this week, so after I finished The Remains of the Day and stared into space for a while, emotionally destroyed, I thought Maybe I should watch the movie! And friends, I should have learned my lesson from Hamnet, along with EVERY OTHER TIME I have watched a screen adaptation of a beloved book: don’t. Or, don’t watch the movie so close to reading the book, because instead of appreciating the film for what it is, I mentally pulled it apart for how it deviated from the book. Did I expect it to have that same emotional interiority of a book, even though that is impossible to show on screen? Did I expect the literary genius to come through? I told my older son I was going to watch the movie and he said, warningly, that I would be angry because it wasn’t the book. The young can teach us so much. He knows me better than I know myself. I do not like screen adaptations. I NEVER like screen adaptations. I am who I am, and who I am is a browning banana who needs to be peeled and put in the freezer before the fruit flies start swarming. I really don’t know what I am doing with this metaphor. xo