The People I Meet On Vacation

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On the very first leg of our journey to Italy, as we settled ourselves into on the plane, three women took their seats in the row in front of us. They were all very attractive and stylish, and approximately ten to twelve years my senior. One of them turned around and informed us that they would be connecting to Rome, on a two week girls’ trip. We are going to Rome too, I began, but it was clear that this woman was interested in monologue, not conversation. She continued to talk, informing me that on her last long-distance flight, she met the Man Of Her Dreams, who was on his way to give a speech to the United Nations. Before I could respond, she said that he hadn’t returned her phone calls yet but that was probably because he was doing medical work in the Amazonian rainforest. The best thing is, she continued, he didn’t wear a wedding ring.

I glanced at her companions, who were silently staring straight ahead.

It was a lot of information to process in ninety seconds, but by the time we landed in Calgary for our connection I had mentally sketched out an outline for a novel based just this conversation, if one could call it a conversation. I also considered my husband, who rarely, if ever, wears his wedding ring. Perhaps the two of us appeared to be on some kind of illicit, Me and Mrs. Jones-style trip of our own.

I love meeting people and learning their stories, and rarely do I get such a complete character sketch in such a short period of time. I always want to know more: where are they going, what are they doing, what are their lives like? I wondered this about the young English woman with a heavy Manchester accent who boarded the Vaporetto in Venice, with the largest wheeled duffle bag I had ever seen. She wore an enormous, but cozy, cream fleece sweatsuit, her ponytail secured with an absolutely gigantic coordinating cream scrunchie. She had two male friends with her and talked incessantly for the entire ride, so of course I listened in. I brought my speaker, she said, patting a small bag by her feet, So we can keep the sound UP. What sound, I wanted to ask, where are you staying that you can do that? That’s a nice place, isn’t it? she suddenly gestured around her. All those green umbrellas. What a specific detail! My head whipped around, looking at all the Venetian buildings, unable to see one green umbrella. What green umbrellas? I missed the green umbrellas!

On our very last day of the trip, we had a small group guided tour of the Pantheon; it was so small, in fact, that it was just us with one other person, Joan, a woman from Boston. This happened to be on the day of the US election, so I asked Joan how she was doing. Ludgio, our guide, listened to our exchange and then said I understand this is a stressful election, but I don’t know why. What is it all about? Joan explained very briefly, and then Ludgio said something that was both astonishing and also kind of refreshing: I have heard the name Donald Trump, but I don’t know anything about him. Talk about ignorance being bliss. IMAGINE. Imagine how wonderful it would be to go through life like that, having never heard that grating voice, having never been exposed to such views! Sure, I’ve heard of the guy, but…

Granted, Ludgio is an Albanian ex-pat living in Italy, who lost all his life savings opening up an art gallery that closed during the pandemic, so it’s not like he was living a life of ease. I’m sure Albania has had its share of political unrest, but I am – maybe blissfully? – ignorant on the topic, as well as on the politics of Italy. Our hotel in Rome was right beside the Italian Parliament building, and every afternoon reporters would be typing away on their laptops, accessing the hotel Wi-Fi. I eavesdropped on their conversations but my Italian is pretty rudimentary, and so I remain ignorant.

Ludgio said something incredibly inspiring, though. He told me that he wakes up every day and has his espresso while looking up the tours he was scheduled to work; he worked to pay his bills and then he came home to paint, have a nice meal, and maybe drink a beer with friends. Anywhere you go, you can live a good life, he said, Just try to live a happy life. I feel like Ludgio had seen some things, and here he was, living his best life, an artist who was making a living talking about art history, while selling paintings on the side.

Ludgio wasn’t the only Albanian we met. In Venice we ate at an Albanian family-owned place, and they were really doing an incredible job for Albanian tourism, if such a thing exists. The only exposure I have had to Albania involves the Alice Munro short story The Albanian Virgin, in which a young Canadian girl sneaks off her cruise ship to take a horseback guided tour, and ends up getting shot and kidnapped by a mountain tribe. She develops Stockholm Syndrome, after which she falls in love and runs away with a Franciscan priest. Based on that story, I’d never considered it as a travel destination. These fellows were convincing me otherwise, talking about the beaches, mountains, and pure beauty of the country. They insisted on treating us to shots of grappa after our meal, and so we left with very warm feelings about the Albanian community. Maybe I will visit Albania! If I do, hopefully I won’t end up in a hostage situation.

Speaking of Canadian literature, after our tour of the Pantheon my husband and I climbed the steps of the monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II, which gave panoramic views of Rome. A woman asked if I would photograph her, and she gave me exact instructions on how to do that, which I genuinely appreciated. I found out she was from Poland. Are you from America? she asked in a very strident voice, to which I responded quickly in the negative. Oh! Canada! My favourite author is from Canada! Have you heard of Margaret Atwood? WELL. I could hardly believe that I would find a fellow Margaret Atwood fan in Rome, of all places, from Poland, of all places. We had a great conversation about The Edible Woman before we went our separate ways.

I did a lot of reading while on trains and planes, in between all my people watching, and so I have many books to tell you about, and I will, a little later. I did want to mention that I had a DNF this week, which I had downloaded to my Kobo only because it was immediately available and I was running out of reading material before my flight home. It was The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey, and listen. I know a lot of you out there love the spicy open-door romance, but to me this was just a really long modern Harlequin-style soft-core porn. Which is fine! I’m not judging. Whatever floods the basement! But I just don’t personally like reading about throbbing cocks and Cardi B-style WAPs. In the same way that I find action movies boring, I find spicy sexy books to be whatever is the opposite of erotic. I never think that I’m a prude, but then I read something like this and I think…I guess I am? The funny thing is that when I was searching for something to read, I saw the author’s name and, like Ludgio with Trump, thought Tessa Bailey, I know that name, but…

Friends, I think I’m finally over my jet lag! I had an absolutely epic, ten hours of uninterrupted sleep on Saturday night and my eyebags went from steamer trunks to pocketbooks. Today is Remembrance Day, which means that it is also the end of Tiny Secret Festive Season, and although I haven’t talked about it, you can bet that I have been celebrating.

I have also been celebrating being reunited with Rex, who has also just gotten over his exhaustion from his vacation. It’s hard work, playing all day every day for three weeks, let me tell you. Especially when there are Halloween parties to attend:

So it’s back to regular programming for us: cooking, writing, and walking down the Golden Mile. I hope you had a great weekend, friends. xo

Five (times two) For Friday: The Arrivederci Italia Edition

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WELL HELLO THERE! Where have I been? I spent just shy of three weeks in Italy; it was a dream vacation and I will remember it forever. Of course, I am in the what are words and how do we use them phase of jet lag, and so behold, I give you a photo-heavy overview of the ten places we visited.

  • Roma! We started and ended our vacation in Rome, which is my favourite city that I have ever been to. I was there on a school trip in Grade 11 and what I remember most is that I couldn’t walk five steps without being blown away by something incredible, and this was exactly my experience now, all these years later. We spent a total of six nights there, and we could have spent sixty and would still not have experienced everything. All of our touring was on foot along the cobblestone streets, dodging the tiny cars for whom things like “lanes” and “pedestrian areas” are fluid and flexible concepts.
  • Vatican City. On my husband’s birthday we went to the Vatican and had a small group tour of the museum and St Peter’s Basilica; of the six people in our group, three were celebrating birthdays. We were led by a very handsome and charming guide named Massimo, who appeared to be some kind of celebrity in the tour guide world. Everywhere we went we heard calls of Ey, Massimo!, to which he’d respond with a lift of his hand and a Ciao. Ciao! Allora., like he was on the red carpet, faced with the paparazzi, and we were his entourage, following behind, rarely getting our tickets checked at the security points. He spoke of himself in the third person. Why do you not let Massimo show you? he’d say, demi-sexually, with his hand on our shoulder if one of our group was lagging or distracted by something. I was the only non-Catholic in our group, which made me the subject of many, many jokes; Massimo gestured widely to the vast number of confessionals in the Basilica. You can surely find an English speaking priest, he said, looking at his watch, And you have until 7pm, that is enough time, no? It was 11am at the time, and I didn’t think eight hours would be quite enough to confess everything, and so I remain non-Catholic.
  • Civita de Bagnoregio. Rome must have been sad that we were leaving, as the beautiful weather TURNED on our departure. We had hired a driver to take us to Montepulciano with a stop at Civita de Bagnoregio, as driving in Italy – especially Rome – is pure madness. Madness, I say! Our driver, Roberto, was achieving speeds near 150 km/hour in the driving rain and fog, on winding roads, and I wondered if this would be the end, beautiful friend. Happily it wasn’t, but the weather did not let up for Civita, a tiny crumbling village on top of a mountain. On the upside, it wasn’t crowded.
  • Montepulciano. After that, Roberto zoomed us over to Montepulciano, a non-crumbling village atop a mountain in Tuscany. It is famous for its wine, which I enjoyed, and we toured a cellar that dated from 1337. We stayed in the most adorable six-room hotel, that was so full of tchotchkes, it felt like staying at someone’s nonna’s house.
  • Siena. We took the train to Siena, also in Tuscany, and enjoyed the food and wine there. Notably we explored the Duomo and climbed the Panorama del Facciatorre and Porto del Cielo, which gave a marvelous view of the city and the basilica. They were accessed by tiny, narrow, spiral staircases, so this is not for the claustrophobic. Fortunately I wasn’t, although the Panorama was a bit nerve wracking, being only a few feet wide with very low railings, towering above the city. We had the added pleasure of seeing longtime friends whom we hadn’t seen in twenty years. We moved on up in the world by staying in a ten-room hotel, which was gorgeous. In the incredible main piazza, I discovered a love of pigeons, channeling my inner Bert, or maybe even my inner Bobby Simone.
  • Firenze! We took the train to Florence, where we were to spend five nights. That’s a lot of nights in Florence, but we had several day trips, via train, planned. The train system is so great in Italy! While in Florence we enjoyed the Renaissance art, and also a little bit of market shopping. Almost everywhere, you can buy David penis-related merchandise, from fridge magnets to key chains to postcards to the type of apron that makes you look like your head has been transposed onto David’s body. It’s all so cheap and weird, which makes the viewing of the actual David even more spectacular. I remembered our teacher chaperone, back on my school trip in 1992, purchasing a plastic replica of David, and I can just imagine it on his coffee table, lo these many years later. I refrained from purchasing any penis-related memorabilia, so anyone expecting one such postcard will be disappointed.
  • Lucca. Our first day trip via train was Lucca, and it was kind of a low point. I had been excitedly anticipating this medieval walled city but we visited it the day before their famous comic and gaming conference, the largest in Europe. We got off the trip with several costumed individuals, including a man who looked exactly like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. The medieval wall was covered in tents from various sponsors, and their main square was filled with a tent advertising Squid Games. There was even a giant inflated anime character beside the church. Still, it was fun to stroll around.
  • Cinqueterra! If Lucca was the low point, Cinqueterra was the high. Our guide, Stephano, picked us up in Florence and drove us non-insanely to Manarola, which we strolled through to catch the train to Corniglia, where we hiked through the hillside to Vernazza. We had lunch there, then took the train to Monterossa al Mare, where I was surprised to see so many people on a beach vacation. This is the Speedo capital of the world! Stephano told me, gesturing to the many men so attired. From there we took a boat back to Manarola and headed back for Florence. It was such a great day, one of the best of my entire life.
  • Pisa! Like David’s penis, there are replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa everywhere, and so my expectations for this sight were fairly low. Was I ever wrong! We took the train to Pisa and when we came up to the historic building I absolutely gasped. It is so incredibly beautiful. It honestly took my breath away. We climbed to the top, and it was kind of unsettling to feel the slant in the floors and in the winding spiral steps. They’d slant one way, then, as you’d make your way to the other side, they’d slant the other. Also, there is a law that if you don’t take a photo pretending to hold up the tower, they make you go home, but it’s harder than you think!
  • Venizia! Venice is such a chaotic, beautiful, wild, crazy place. It is a frequent stop for cruise ships, and we got there on a Saturday afternoon, which was maybe not the best timing. There was incredibly dense fog, and we wandered the streets, getting pleasantly lost, until our wandering brought us into masses of people crammed into streets lined with incredibly high-end shops. It felt all the world like being in the Venetian hotel in Vegas, except with poor air quality. We had to stop and fortify ourselves with several Aperol spritzes. The next day was much more fun; we got up very early and took the Vaporitta, the water bus, through the city while listening to an audio guide. I had fully expected to want a gondola ride, but when I saw the reality – bumper to bumper gondolas, people queued up as for a Disney ride – I didn’t want to anymore. The population of Venice is diminishing rapidly as it is very expensive to live there, doing day-to-day things like getting groceries is nearly impossible, and there are very strict government building codes that prevent changes to dwellings that are decaying, mildewed, and subject to frequent floods. I’m really glad we went to Venice, because it’s an incredible sight to behold, but I don’t want to go back.

And now I’m home, and trying to catch up on life! I’d love to catch up with all of you, as well. I missed you! Currently I have 304 unread posts in my reader, so it might take some time – help a girl out and tell me what I’ve missed! News did follow me and so I did not miss the US election results. While I’m always sending Care Bear Stares to my friends around the globe, I’m sending extra to my friends south of the border. I hope you can feel them. Tell me something good, friends, or tell me what’s happening in your life, tell me something fun, tell me something serious, just tell me anything. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Trick or Treat Edition

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I never really understood Anne Shirley’s feelings on October until I moved here. It is so beautiful right now, I can barely stand it. The colours are gorgeous, and every day is a little bit different. I’m becoming slightly unhinged, talking about leaves to my family every day.

I mean, I am stopping perfect strangers on the street to talk to them about fall colours, which isn’t TOTALLY out of line for me, but I am starting to become a tiny bit concerned about my sanity. Also I’m starting to worry that people are going to recognize and avoid me from here on in.

For the first time ever, I will not be celebrating Halloween in the traditional sense, and so I’m a little early this month, talking about my Favourite Things! Some of these things are tricks, some are treats, and some are both.

Gourds, Decorative and Otherwise, Motherfuckers

You guys, I grew my own pumpkins!

Cute, right? Have you ever seen a more perfect pumpkin? There’s more where that came from, in addition to my massive haul of butternut squash.

And, of course, more zucchini.

I could not resist the siren call of the motherfucking decorative gourds. It’s the season, motherfuckers!

Fruit Is Nature’s Candy

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, grape harvesting is done, and so I have thoroughly enjoyed my own backyard Concords.

There is so much incredible fresh fruit right now, and my favourites are pears and apples. A neighbourhood girl was selling plums from her own backyard trees to raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation, so of course I had to buy some.

But the apples, my god, the apples. I cannot get enough of those delicious, tree-ripened McIntosh apples. I’m eating two or three a day right now. I may turn into an apple. HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES.

These apples are delicious! As a matter of fact they are, she said.

The Other Kind of Grape

We live at the bottom of a vineyard; we own, along with my mother-in-law, two acres of it, but the rest is owned by the founder of Tantalus Vineyards. What you may not know is that those vineyards were owned by my husband’s family until my late father-in-law sold them to Tantalus twenty years ago. They still have a block named after him, and they still have the Old Vines, planted by him – and my then-teenaged husband – in 1978. The winery is, therefore, a place I like to visit, particularly when we have out-of-town guests, and so I took my parents there for a wine tasting.

I love their homegrown Riesling, but I REALLY love their Syrah. The Syrah grapes are not grown on the adjacent property; instead they come from just south of here, and sadly they, along with 95% of Okanagan grapes, were decimated by the cold snap we had here in January. Yes, you read that right: 95% of ALL wine grape crops in the Okanagan were destroyed, which means that there will be little to no 2024 vintage. People, if you love Okanagan wines, get them now while you can.

I was disheartened to hear that of 110 Syrah grape plants, from which this wine is made, 108 are gone. You can bet I’m going to savour these wines that my dad bought for me, because it will be many years before they are available again.

Just An Ordinary Girl In An Ordinary World

On a less-apocalyptic note, let’s talk about Ordinary products. I have been using this line for a few years, ever since my wrinkle-less friend Denise (HI DENISE) told me about them. I have loved their caffeine undereye serum, but I branched out and bought the multi-peptide one, and I really think it’s made a difference.

I also bought Matrixyl for my forehead wrinkles, and while I don’t think these are miraculous, dermatologist office substitutes, I think they work pretty well. Things don’t seem to be getting worse, and sometimes the status quo is the best we can hope for.

Ghosting the Blessed Life

Whenever someone visits my house for the first time, there is a guarantee that they will comment on the volume of bananas on my countertop. I don’t blame them; as a family we go through a vast amount. I personally go through fourteen bananas a week, entirely in smoothie form.

My breakfast smoothie is made up of cashew milk, nut butter, a frozen banana, and a ton of spinach. I always feel great after consuming it; it’s a nutrition bomb full of vitamins, fibre, calcium, and iron.

The one thing it’s not super high in is protein. I mean, yes, there is protein involved, but I don’t feel it’s enough to adequately fuel my very active, plant-based lifestyle. This means that every lunch I make myself a smoothie with protein powder, cashew milk, and yet another frozen banana. It feels like a milkshakey treat, and I look forward to it. I used to buy the Protein Works vegan line, but it was a) expensive, and b) only available in the US or UK, and so I was always paying exchange rates and shipping. I decided to branch out and I’m so glad I did.

Ghost vegan protein powder tastes exactly like a delicious chocolate milkshake, not too sweet or cloying, and it has a perfect, non-gritty texture.

I’ve tried a few of the Blessed flavours, to much disappointment. The chocolate, usually a safe flavour for me, is frankly disgusting, and the strawberry isn’t much better. The chocolate coconut is okay, but this! This vanilla chai, which sounds like a risky choice, is really, really good. Once in a while I’ll even use it instead of nut butter in my spinach smoothie and it works great.

Outfit of the Month

It’s my Fall Uniform!

Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) recently was talking about buying multiples of the same clothing item, which is a very relatable topic. I have bought three pair of the Infinite Fit Silver jeans that I spoke about last month – they are stretchy and comfortable and, amazingly, don’t lose their shape. They fit like a more-structured yoga pant. These ones are the straight cut, which I like to wear cuffed with booties. The sweater is just a light old one from the Gap, and the tank top underneath is from Lululemon, both about six years old. I wear some combination of jeans, boots, and a black – or, if I’m feeling saucy, grey – sweater, often with a tank underneath, basically every day. Why mess with the uniform?

As previously mentioned, I won’t be celebrating Halloween in the traditional sense, and that is because I’m going on a big adventure! To that end, I will be taking a blog break. I can’t wait to tell you all about it, sometime in November, but until then, take care of yourselves, friends. Treat yourselves tenderly, and maybe treat yourself to a few treats as well. Or tricks! I don’t judge. xo

In It Together

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I was taking a Peloton class the other day, and I noticed something. I am a person who likes to send out “high fives” to everyone surrounding me on the leaderboard, particularly people who have the same group hashtags as I do. My people! I will think, happily, if I see someone from the #yestoyoucrew or #PelotonCanada. I was cheerfully moving my way up when I saw the hashtag #therapyfortherapists.

It reminded me of the time I saw #therapistsofpeloton and all I could think of was this:

What I’m saying is that I’m glad the rapists are getting therapy through exercise.

I love Peloton for many reasons, and one of them is that I love the idea that there are other people out there, doing the same exact workout as me at the same exact time. It gives me that wonderful feeling of we are all in this life together, doing the same things, but differently that I absolutely love. Here we all are, going about our lives, separately, but somehow interconnected.

When I was in university, I took a couple of classes from a professor who had the worst body odour you can imagine. This wasn’t simply a matter of oops, forgot my deodorant before I hit the gym. This was on another level altogether. It had to have been a medical issue; it was a Seinfeld-level entity. You didn’t dare sit in the first three rows in his classroom, or, if you did, you’d never make that mistake again. Even in the very back, at best you’d leave the classroom surreptitiously sniffing your clothes to ensure that the smell didn’t cling, at worst, you’d finish class with a nauseous headache.

It occurred to me one day, as I took notes on microeconomic systems, that this professor was married. I looked with wonder at the fluorescent overhead light glinting on his wedding ring, and I marvelled at the idea. There is a lid for every pot, I thought with awe. It hit me, maybe for the first time ever, that day back in 1995, that we all have sides of us that other people don’t see. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, as I scribbled down the required equations. Maybe his wife had no sense of smell, I thought, or maybe she liked his smell, maybe she felt it was a sexy, manly musk. Maybe she just loved him so much that his smell didn’t matter, and this realization – that maybe this professor had a whole different personality and set of interests that no one else knew about – made me feel a bit dizzy. Or maybe it was the body odour, wafting its way to my desk.

It started a bit of a fascination for me; not with that professor in particular, but with people in general. Professors for sure were interesting to think about. If you have ever been in an economics department, you will know what I mean. How interesting it is to think that at some point, these men – they were almost exclusively men back then, in the 90s – fell in love and, presumably, proposed to the women that they were married to. At some point, that professor who was dully talking about the utility curve had passionately declared his love and, most likely, had sexual relations. THEY INTERCOURSED. Most likely, anyway.

Later, when I was working in a very male-dominated department, the same thing would occur to me, not the intercoursing, but the romantic relations. I would be sitting in a meeting or working on a pricing model or listening to someone talk about synergies or optionality or circling back, and suddenly the idea that the speaker in question had presumably gone to a jeweler and chosen an engagement ring and given it to a woman, a woman who I had met at the office holiday party, with words of love and romance, popped into my head. Once, when speaking about a case of mergers and acquisitions, a former boss used the term opening the kimono. I’m sure that phrase is now out of use, but at the time I thought what if he HAD a kimono, an actual kimono, and he opened it for his wife.

The point of all this is that people are complicated, and interesting, and can be more than one thing at the same time. Every single person is so much more than they present to the world, which is something I try to remember every day. That person is beloved to somebody, I’ll think when I have a less-than-rosy interaction, sometimes with my teeth gritted.

A few months ago I was driving home and was followed very closely by a very large truck. I was driving with the flow of traffic, just barely over the speed limit, and I was being tailgated in an alarming way. All I could see in my rearview mirror was this giant truck grill. I stopped at a red light and just as it turned green, the driver in question wildly passed me on the right, which wasn’t a lane at all but a shoulder, cut me off, and then slammed on the brakes. He then proceeded to drive at least thirty kilometres below the speed limit.

What you have to understand is my reaction. His slow driving did not even register to me until I realized that there was no one in front of him to cause it. It took me a few minutes of this to realize that he was “getting me back.” Buddy. You’ve got the wrong girl. I wasn’t bothered at all by this, in fact, I was amused. I didn’t mind in the least. What, am I going to be two minutes late to get home? Am I going to be late to unload these groceries? I calmly, smilingly continued to follow him at this slow speed, listening to my Forever 35 podcast, when he tired of this ruse, and screeched his tires as he sped through the upcoming traffic circle. I imagined him going home, and complaining to someone about the middle aged bitch who slowed him down. I hope he had someone to complain to.

Weekly Reading

It was re-read week at the Boyhouse! I re-visited some old favourites. I’d like to please remind my friends that, when it comes to Alice Munro, I am only interested in discussing her craft and writing. Thank you for supporting my mental and emotional health.

Diary of a Provincial Lady. When I mentioned this book last week, I had an absolute craving to re-read it. This is one of my all-time favourites and no, nothing happens. I have read it so much that it is literally falling apart, and I have to carefully keep the pages in order. It is just so witty and clever. It contains one of my favourite paragraphs ever written: “Move about after dinner, and meet acquaintance whose name I have forgotten, but connect with literature. I ask if he has published anything lately. He says that his work is not, and never can be, for publication. Thought passes through my mind to the effect that this attitude might with advantage be adopted by many others.” HA. Also, I love this: “Overhear one lady in stalls ask another: Why don’t you write a play, dear? Well, says the friend, it’s so difficult, what with one thing and another, to find time. Am staggered. (Query: Could I write a play myself? Could we all write plays, if only we had the time?)”

Amy and Isabelle. No one can write like Elizabeth Strout; her prose is so beautiful and moving and heartbreaking. This book was a reread for me. I first read it in April 2020; my husband gave it to me for my birthday, when all the libraries were closed, and because of that, I was reminded of that time, rereading. It’s a bleak story about a mother and daughter in a small town in Maine – it IS Elizabeth Strout, after all – and the secrets they keep from each other. I am always fascinated by people’s lives, and the things we don’t know about the people we think we know, and this book is all about that. What I didn’t know until I read it this time is that this is Strout’s debut, which she wrote at age 42! I love knowing that. And what a debut! It’s a really incredible, character-driven book. It’s gritty. It’s grim. It’s beautiful. I love it.

Too Much Happiness. This book is a master class in spare, moving writing, and it is one of the few – maybe it’s the only? – Alice Munro collections that contains a novella. The novella is the title story, about famed Russian mathematician Sophia Kovalevskaya. More than that, this collection contains a really wide variety of really incredible stories. Munro is unmatched in creating stories of characters that I think about often.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. In an unbelievable twist, I actually finished my Christmas shopping, which is a new record by far, and one which I don’t really want to repeat. There’s a reason for that, but I will tell you all about it later. For now, I hope you all have a beautiful October week. xo

Three For Thursday: Dinner, Dog, Domestic Duties

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Cozy Dinner Season Begins

Gardening season is wrapping up for the year, but the zucchinis and tomatoes are still going strong. You would think we would all be tired of those things, but I made a Buddha bowl last weekend and was astonished when my son said that the zucchini was a great addition.

I have filled my freezer both with bags of grated zucchini and roasted tomatoes. The garden has produced more tomatoes than anyone could possibly consume, and that is coming from someone who can consume a lot of tomatoes. I don’t want to can them, and so I roast them with olive oil and freeze them; pureed with pasta water and a little bit of goat or cashew cheese makes for a really incredible sauce. Roasted zucchini goes great with it!

I still have some cilantro, but I feel like its days are numbered. I love it sprinkled on top of stir-fry. Note that there is zucchini in there.

My second planting of kale, spinach, and lettuce has been prolific, but I think this might be the last big homegrown salad of the year. It will be strange to buy greens again.

For the record, there was no zucchini in that salad.

The Grocery Shopping Never Ends, Neither Does The Laundry

The garden has definitely had a huge impact on the amount of produce I need to buy every week, but even so, I am constantly astounded by the sheer volume of groceries I buy for our household of now-three.

I went to Costco on Tuesday, which wasn’t the best idea given I was having the kind of day that was just filled with constant tiny annoyances. Typically I launder all the sheets on Tuesdays, and I decided to throw in my duvet cover and pillow shams as well, which resulted in said duvet cover and my fitted sheet cannibalizing all the other linens. While they were, unbeknownst to me, becoming a tangled, soggy mess in the dryer, I blithely thought to launder the pillows as well, which kept unbalancing the washer load. When the washer was stuck in spin mode at the four-minute mark for over twenty minutes, I clued in that something was wrong. By the time I resolved these very minor, but annoying laundry crises, I was not in the best mental space to tackle Costco, but I did it anyway.

My thinking was that Tuesday was far enough ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend, and that it wouldn’t be too crazy, but I was wrong. I was wrong. It turns out every elderly, slow-moving, sample-eating, spatially-unaware person in the surrounding area ALSO thought Tuesday would be far enough ahead of Thanksgiving to be a good time to go to Costco.

Now, listen. One day, hopefully, I will be one of those elderly, slow-moving people in Costco, stocking up to host the whole family for a holiday meal. Hopefully we all will be! But as god is my witness, I will never stand in the middle of the aisle eating a dixie cup filled with a sample of ravioli or frozen mixed vegetables, I will never take two carts, trainlike, and block off the entire frozen fruit section, and I will never angle my cart sideways in the produce section and then leave said cart to check on my husband in baked goods, while clusters of people become stuck in the giant refrigerator, experiencing the Costco equivalent of road rage when they are just trying to get a goddamn bag of broccoli, Carol.

I was trying to be zen about it. I mean, it’s not like an extra ten minutes was going to kill me. All the same, I had to go into the Christmas section to calm myself down. I was incredibly soothed by the displays, and I considered buying myself a giant Snoopy-themed holiday gift basket, but decided that $39 was too much to spend on something filled with things I have no use for, like hot chocolate bombs and marshmallow cookies. Still, the mug was cute.

Since the closure of Hallmark stores several years ago, I have not been able to find really nice gift wrap for birthdays and such. I always wished that Costco would make a non-holiday version of their high-quality gift wrap, and people! They have! If I hadn’t been so annoyed by my fellow aged shoppers, I would never have soothed myself in the Christmas section, and I would have never found a three-pack of beautiful, double-sided paper. The universe works in strange ways.

Two Year Rexaversary

Two years ago today, we were given the most wonderful gift: Rex. I am grateful every day we were chosen to be his family.

Rex is the epitome of joy, and I feel like we could all take lessons from him. When I open his crate in the morning, he reacts with such excitement and happiness to see me, and that sets the tone for the day. Every single thing is exciting to him: walking, gardening, getting a treat, finding a stick, and sitting with me while I write, fold the laundry, or make dinner. He loves to go for car rides; it doesn’t matter where, as long as he’s with me. He is just pure cheer and joy, and we love that giant fuzzy goofball.

How lucky we are. How grateful I am. Happy Thanksgiving, friends. xo

Boring Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

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I remember exactly what I was doing when I realized it. I was on the couch, with two babies in my lap, watching Sesame Street. What you must remember is what Gen X mothers were like, back in the early 2000s. Our generational Meh Attitude completely morphed into something else when our babies were born. We became laser-focused on the task at hand, the task of raising our now Gen Z children to be future stars of the world, and screen time was not a part of that process.

At the time, the expert recommendation was no screen time at all for children under two, and so any time I collapsed on the couch with my one-year-old and my newborn, colicky baby, I felt a deep sense of guilt and wrong-doing. It would only be a few years later where small children would be pacified with iPads in the grocery store, in waiting rooms, in restaurants, but that was not part of my reality, not at all. My generation was the one with the Baby Einstein board books and activity toys, it was the generation that actually put thought into whether black-and-white toys were more intellectually stimulating than colourful ones, and screen time was akin to neglect at best.

But my god, I was tired. I was tired and lonely in only the way you can be when you are surrounded by crying, needy little beings all day long. Someone was always crying, it seemed, someone always needed something, and it took a solid two hours to prepare to leave the house. And so sometimes I would succumb to the siren song of PBS Kids and watch Sesame Street.

And it was then that I realized that I really identified with Bert.

It was a startling, St Paul on the road to Damascus feeling, akin to the day I realized I wasn’t Jo March, I was Amy, and I wasn’t Elizabeth Bennett, I was Charlotte Lucas. Sure, I don’t have a paperclip collection, nor an interest in pigeons, but I did show everyone I know the photo I took of a blue heron.

I would have liked to think I was a wildcard like Grover, or a good time like Ernie, or even a secretive, mysterious Snuffalupagus, but no. I’m Bert. I like the colour grey, particularly in clothing and home decor, I enjoy oatmeal very much, and, most of all, I love what other people might term Boring Stories.

During the pandemic, when I started posting all the books I read on Instagram, I received a nasty message from a woman who berated my literary choices. She had bought – bought! – several books that I had raved about, and was sorely disappointed in every last one of them. How could you even like these? she wrote. Literally nothing happens! They are the most boring books I’ve ever read in my life!

Well. If you know me at all you know I’m a big fan of character-driven literary fiction. It’s true, I don’t love a thick plot or a lot of action. One of my favourites is Diary of a Provincial Lady, and nothing at all does happen in that book. Literally, nothing.

The same is true in my choice of podcasts, and nowhere was this more apparent than when I was road tripping with my husband this past week. He likes Things To Happen, I don’t, and so we end up with a happy medium of comedy podcasts and celebrity interviews. A current favourite of mine is Cookbook Club, where the hosts sound like the Schweddy Balls ladies on SNL, and are apt to take a five-minute digression about rainbow sprinkles and whether white sprinkles should be included in a rainbow mix and should we all just create our own rainbow sprinkle mixes? If I were to play that in the car with my husband, he would be liable to drive us off a cliff just to end the suffering.

We did not drive off a cliff, obviously, but we did have poor driving conditions for at least seven of the nearly ten hours that we spent in the car on Tuesday. The least of it was rain; we also hit snow in Rogers’ Pass and through the Jasper Parkway, plus fog most of the way, but mostly in Saskatchewan Crossing.

We were visiting my parents; it was my dad’s 75th birthday, and so there was a nice big house party with my aunt, cousins, and uncle. I had a great time visiting, playing dice poker, eating and drinking. I also enjoyed the sunrises over the lake:

And of course, walking in the fall foliage.

Rex is a really great traveller, and was so well behaved when we stopped for an overnight with our friends in Calgary.

We came home on Saturday and although the conditions were better, the drive was so long and slow due to road construction and single lane traffic. The views made up for it though.

Even still, I am feeling slightly resentful having to get in the car after all that driving. The only thing I miss about Calgary, other than friends, is the ability to walk anywhere in my neighbourhood. I have to drive to walk the dog, and yesterday Rex and I were not super excited to get back into the Subaru.

Speaking of Calgary, we drove through that old neighbourhood, and I expected to be very emotional, but I was not moved at all. Did my soul leave my body without me knowing it? The old house looks the same, other than the garden being a shambles, but it wasn’t sad to me at all. I guess I’ve really moved on.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of boring books, I read some that were boring TO ME, and both of those were memoir. Typically I love memoir but these just did not hit. However, I read a really excellent novel this week, so I guess things even out.

On Being Human. As I was reading this, I kept thinking that this seemed familiar, this memoir of a yoga teacher who discovers that she has had lifelong hearing loss in adulthood. Well, I discovered the reason I found it so familiar: I read this in December 2019. Obviously it wasn’t all that memorable. I am kind of annoyed with myself for spending time reading this not once but twice. To be fair, I did enjoy reading about her childhood and yoga journey, but I was just not in the mood to read chapter after chapter of self-loathing, name-dropping, and her experiences with creating a brand via Facebook. Wow, was it repetitive. If I pick this up again in five years, thinking it looks interesting, please remind me to drop it.

Good Material. A stand-up comedian is going through a breakup, and it’s devastating to him. Suddenly he is an apartment-less, emotional wreck who discovers that being single and 35 is different than being single in his 20s. This book is written almost entirely from the male point of view, which is not usually something I read, but which was entertaining and very well written. The point of view switches near the end and really shows that there are two sides to every story, at the least. The book ends in January 2020, which is a really interesting choice by the author – we know that things are doomed, but our characters don’t. I really enjoyed this book, it is so well-written and uniquely thought out. 

More Please. A couple of years ago I swore off millennial memoirs, on account of me being just a bit too old to appreciate them. This is a Me Thing, not a Them Thing – I’m just not in the right stage of life. However, I heard this woman speak on a podcast and was impressed enough to pick up her book – and I wish I hadn’t. It was so repetitive and boring, not saying anything new or interesting. The good news is that it only took me a couple of hours to read. 

Before we left on our road trip, we took our annual family photo. It’s interesting; we are not a family who fights or bickers, but when it comes to family photos, we all suddenly hate each other. Historically, that is, because somehow we took the photo with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. It was a red-letter day. Anyway, this photo will be our Christmas card, and if you are a person who also likes to send Christmas cards, let me know, and I will add you to my list. Very important caveat: I am only interested in a Christmas card exchange; I get hurt feelings if I send a card and don’t get one back. If we exchanged cards last year, you are already on my list! If you’d like to be included, message me in the comments and we’ll exchange addresses. Have a beautiful week, everyone! xo

Bear-ly An Update

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After the neighbourhood started locking up their garbage in the spring, we hadn’t seen any signs of our resident bears until about a month ago. All of the ripening fruit around here was beckoning the bears with their fruity siren songs. Three weeks ago, my mother-in-law was sending me text after text, updating me on the sightings on our road; first the mama bear and her THREE cubs were in her friend’s fruit trees, then they were in another neighbour’s raspberry bushes, and then, finally, she spotted them herself, hanging out by our machinery shed. Later that night the bears pawed through our recycling bin, which was probably as disappointing to them as it was upsetting to me. The claw marks that they left on our bins were, to say the least, alarming.

I am relaying this very calmly, but I was not feeling very calm. I was very, very worried on behalf of Rex and all the myriad neighbourhood dogs, should they have a Close Encounter of the Bear Kind. In fact, a few weeks back Rex and I were headed to the garden and he took off at full speed. Typically this means he’s chasing off a deer or a squirrel or even a flock of birds, but as I saw a fuzzy brown bum disappear through the grape vines and down towards the hay fields below, I knew. My mother-in-law told me no, it surely must have been a deer, but I knew. I knew. And I was worried because although he’s proven he won’t go near a full-grown bear, the cubs are very small, and hence chaseable, for this time of year. I don’t think they are any bigger than Rex himself.

I was anxious and worried every time I let Rex out of the house or left the house myself. I’d scan the yard from every angle, I’d arm myself with the flashlight if it was dark, and my husband kept our bear-scaring noise-making gun loaded and our bear spray nearby.

I was writing in the office when my husband asked me to come look out our bedroom window.

There they were, snacking away at the grapes.

Something happened at that moment. I realized the bears are not here to terrorize me. This isn’t the 1976 film Grizzly. They are just trying to prepare for winter, they are trying to survive; which, by looking at those skinny tiny cubs, feels unlikely right now. They are eating the fruit and when the fruit is gone, they’ll move on, I thought, and that is exactly what happened. The fruit has been picked and/ or eaten, and the bears are no longer en evidence.

But in that moment, looking at those cubs, I felt an immense peace settle over me. It was a perfect example of changing my attitude when the circumstances were not in my control. Honestly, I felt at that moment like I could be a motivational speaker.

Literally nothing changed, except my feelings about the bears. I still scan the yard, I still take out the flashlight, I still watch and listen carefully, but I no longer feel anxious or even upset about it. They are just doing what they naturally need to do, and we can coexist.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not stupidly thinking that these bears are my friends or my pets or – if we go back to 1976 and the Governor General award-winning book Bear – my lovers. But I probably won’t see them until next spring, and I have a feeling that I won’t see those cubs again at all.

Weekly Reading

The unofficial theme this week is Unstable and Chaotic Women.

All Fours. Listen, there’s the usual chaos that surrounds perimenopause, and then there’s completely going bananas. When I put this on hold a few months ago, I saw a five-star review that simply said “middle-aged women going insane is my favourite genre” and I think “middle-aged woman going insane” pretty much describes this book. Wow, is it wild. IS IT WILD. A podcast was discussing it; one of the hosts had not finished, and the other said “have you got to the weird part yet?” and after reading this, I can say “what weird part?” THE WHOLE THING IS THE WEIRD PART. It is absolutely bonkers and I really enjoyed it BUT here is a warning for anyone who is sensitive in a totally normal way – this is very graphic, and very crazy, and it totally made me think of that woman who wrote a book about her open marriage and who recommended a waterproof dog blanket for a “sex blanket” as it was wipeable, for all the fluids. There are a lot of fluids in this book. So it’s about a woman’s journey into her own sexuality, gender, marriage, and kind of everything else? But it’s also really symbolic and pretty in-depth about women’s lives, expectations, and roles in society. The insights about being a woman in midlife, with all the power and all the invisibility and all the expectations, are spot on. It is also really, really funny. As an example: she is filming herself doing what can only be described as a mating dance, and she carefully buttons up a blouse and tucks it into giant beige panties, pulling the shirt hem through the leg holes. She looks at herself and thinks “this is a new outfit he’s never seen before.” I MEAN. I would not recommend this to anyone who has any kind of squeamishness about…kind of anything sexual, but also about open marriages and infidelity, and also, weirdly, dog poop? But I have to say I could not stop reading it and while I am generally a squeamish person, particularly about fecal matter – who isn’t, really – I did really enjoy this. But then, I like the kinds of books that have a lot of metaphors and symbolism.

Same As It Ever Was. It takes massive talent to create a such an incredible character arc and redemption story; it takes so much talent to write such a compelling book with such an unlikeable protagonist. I spent the first half of this 500 page book strongly disliking and being frustrated by the main character; it took until the halfway point when I could see a complex backstory that was breathtaking. When I say “frustrated,” I mean that I passionately wanted to shake this woman by the shoulders and tell her to pull herself together, for the love of god. Her behaviour was absurd to me, and incredibly unrelatable. But then! Then we are introduced to her mother and wow, this mother makes all other mothers look like Mother Mary. This woman is one of the meanest women in literature – and yet, the backstory is woven in so cleverly that you can’t help but feel a bit of pity for her. This is such a complex family story about mothers and daughters, about marriage and aging, and about friendship. It’s beautifully written and so satisfying.

We are heading out on a road trip this week! Not an All Fours type of road trip – I hope, dear god, I hope – but a fun time nonetheless. I will catch up with you all when I’m back, and in the meantime, please enjoy these lovely photos from our beautiful, currently bear-free, home base. Don’t be deceived by appearances: the creek is gorgeous right now, but incredibly stinky. It’s Salmon Spawning and Subsequent Death season, and the creek is full of dead salmon. Alarmingly, every once in a while there will be a decaying salmon on the walking path and I’m just not sure of the logistics. I’m surprised I haven’t seen the bears down there, snacking, but I guess they don’t like already-dead fish. xo