Five For Friday: The 1988 Version

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My writing partner Laura (HI LAURA) has been using her old journals and diaries for writing prompts, which in theory would be a great idea for me to do as well, had I not shredded and thrown out all of mine from my childhood and teen years. It’s probably for the best, honestly. No one needs to remind themselves of such misery. Even though I think of the years between fifth and ninth grade as being the absolute low point of my life, Laura convinced me to look back at my old yearbooks, in lieu of my long-lost diaries, and to write about a moment in time, 1988.

The yearbooks have a page in the back for students to fill out, things like Favourite Subject, and Best Friends, and also – weirdly – “Most Gorgeous Guy” and “Best Looking Girl”. Did the purveyors of the yearbook really think that we needed to know who were “The Jock” and “The Jockette” in the years to come? I guess they did. In any case, it was an enlightening journey, going back 36 years, to one of the least-joyful years of my life.

  • I don’t know what you were doing in 1988, but I was finishing seventh and starting eighth grade. The junior high years are universally miserable, aren’t they, but I feel they were particularly so in the 80s, and even more so for girls. Age thirteen is a tricky age to be in any case, what with the angst and the complete lack of self-esteem and the desperation to fit in and belong; there are friend crises and romantic crises and clothing crises, and everything in the world seems like it is just poised to constantly thwart you and break your spirit. And as if the generalized agony and misery of seventh and eighth grade were not enough to destroy a girl’s soul, the styles in 1988 finished them off. I am going to make a bold statement right now: no one, but no one, looked good in 1988. There was just no chance. If it wasn’t bad enough to have acne made worse with the use of St Ives Apricot Scrub followed by Sea Breeze astringent, hairstyles that surrounded our poor little scoured faces were insane. Who decided that spiral perms with bangs teased to be vertical were a good idea? This is when we were made aware of the diminishing ozone layer, so we all traded in our aerosol hairsprays for pumps, which we used to make our hair into literal walls. When gravity started to take its inevitable toll on those bangs, we rallied by holding them straight up and spraying them until they dried into a solid form. Why did we do that? What were we thinking? Who came up with this ubiquitous hairstyle?
My Grade Eight yearbook photo
  • I’m not going to say that fashion was worse than the hairstyles – what could be worse than vertical bangs? – but it was pretty bad: loose-fitting jeans that were rolled or pinned at the ankles, which is generally an unflattering silhouette, gigantic tees that were tucked into those jeans, and Keds or their knock-offs, with no socks, which necessitated a toxic amount of baby powder sprinkled inside to keep the feet relatively odour-free. In my school, there was one type of denim that was acceptable, and one type only: Levi’s, with the red tab. Wearing an orange tab would result in incessant teasing, and wearing literally any other kind of jean would make a person a social pariah. At my school, there was no room for variety.
Definitely Levi’s, with my Garfield sweatshirt
  • I loved – and still love – all kinds of music, and I would make mix tapes from the radio, so that every song would be slightly cut off or have the radio station’s jingle or the DJ’s voice fading in or out. My favourite band from that time was INXS, and that was also the first concert I ever went to. Following that, I had concert fever and would go to see any band, at any time. Those were very inexpensive endeavours; I think most concert tickets were under $20, and I was a pretty in-demand babysitter at the time, albeit one who made $2.50 an hour, and so the money that I didn’t spend on hairspray and Cover Girl makeup went towards concerts. 1988 was also the year I got into Depeche Mode and retro music like The Beatles and The Doors.
From the Peer Leadership Program
  • When it comes to non-music pop culture, I was glad to have my yearbooks to remind me of my favourites. According to them, my favourite movies in 1988 were Heathers, which, if I thought about it, I could have guessed, and Rain Man, which I absolutely would not. Rain Man, really? Who knew? When it came to television, I loved The Wonder Years – also, if I thought hard enough I could have remembered that, I’d probably still enjoy it today – and Head of the Class. Gun to my head, I would have never come up with Head of the Class. All I remember, mostly, is that the teacher was the guy who was Johnny Fever on WKRP, and Robin Givens, who was married to Mike Tyson, was a student. Oh, wait, you guys, I just googled it and apparently Dan Schneider, the gross abusive pedophile (allegedly), was also on that show. You are dead to me, Head of the Class. Not that I remembered you prior to this exercise, but still. Dead. To me.
Student of the Month
  • In 1988, the whole city had Olympic Fever – the whole city, it seemed, except for me. If there is anything more contrarian and eye-rolly than a thirteen-year-old girl, I don’t know what it is, but I was So Sick of Anything To Do With The Olympics, MOM. I mean, the most prestigious international athletic event taking place in your own city, who cares, am I right? I did enjoy the figure skating, though, and was able to take in an event to see Canada’s sweetheart, Elizabeth Manley, and also the battle between Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas, the latter of whom had a shockingly terrible life, post-Olympics. She was a fabulous skater, though, and that was also the year of the Battle of the Brians, and of Gordeeva and Grinkov. But other than the figure skating, I could not have cared less about the Olympics, and was extremely salty at being forced to watch speed skating practices as a school field trip. I was also annoyed at the joy of the city-wide celebration when the Flames won the Stanley Cup the following year; It’s Just Hockey, WHO CARES (sorry, Darren, if you’re reading this, I’ve grown since then, and also, HI DARREN). Ah, it’s hard to be thirteen. Everyone is irritated with your attitude, and truth be told, YOU are irritated with your own attitude. My strange contrarian attitude towards anything that brought happiness to the city makes my listed “Ambition” even weirder: I wrote that I wanted to be a mayor. Not THE mayor. A mayor. I do not remember ever being interested in the least in municipal politics; maybe I just wanted to keep out all sporting events from the city (or town, I guess) I ruled over? Who can say. I do find it strange that I didn’t list my ambition as being Prime Minister, or even a Member of the Legislative Assembly; I stopped at “a mayor.” I’m generally a Go Big or Go Home kind of gal, so this is puzzling, to say the least.

This little trip down memory lane was fun, but it has left me with more questions than answers. For a much less weird foray into the past, don’t forget to check out, and subscribe to, Laura’s Substack – she’s a gorgeous writer with beautiful art and thought-provoking essays, plus prompts for writing and journalling. I hope you all have a great weekend, perhaps one thinking of your own 1988, or your thirteen-year-old self, or maybe even your hopes and dreams of one day becoming the mayor of a random municipality. xo

Knocking Off The To-Do List

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Thank you all so much for your commiseration about the wildlife situation around here; I am happy to tell you that since the neighbourhood collectively locked up their garbage, Baloo seems to have moved on to greener pastures, hopefully one that has natural, non-garbage food to eat. I know things will be different once fruit season kicks in, but for now, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. Now, am I low-level on the edge in the morning, obsessively checking the windows before going outside or letting Rex out? Yes I am. Did my heart rate increase by fifty on hearing a suspicious noise as I prepared for my yoga practice, only to discover that it was my mother-in-law innocently moving her recycling bin? Also yes. I thought you were the bear! I scream-whispered at five in the morning.

Just to add to the excitement, Rex and I have taken what I call “urban walks,” as opposed to our walks along the nature paths or up Knox Mountain, four times over the past two weeks, and each time we have seen coyotes. One even followed us down the sidewalk for a while, as Rex barked and barked and I used every ounce of strength to hold him back. Do I find that incredibly unsettling? Yes I do.

This park bench is on our urban walking route, and it brings me so much joy, I cannot even. Looking at it makes those coyote encounters feel worthwhile. It’s like there is an entire story written in just one sentence; I feel like Lloyd’s bench is a book that is just waiting to be written.

Speaking of books, I have one of those five year, one line a day journals, and now that I’m on my third year with it, I’m really seeing the payoff. I consider this blog to be a journal of sorts, but the one line a day is such a good way to capture, briefly, what was going on in my life, and I can see at this time last year, I was basically having a nervous breakdown.

One of the many things causing my breakdown was the uncertainty of basically everything to do with the move, and more specifically, the change in medical care. Last Wednesday, I went to note in my journal that I had, with pride and excitement, accomplished something I have been working on for more than six months, and on that very day, one year before, my husband had received some pretty devastating medical news. Now, before we all hit the panic at the disco button, let me reassure you that my husband is still alive and thriving, but at the time, we didn’t know what was going to happen. He needed a medical procedure, and we were six weeks out from moving to a new province. We didn’t know if he’d be able to get it before we left, and if he wasn’t, what were we going to do? Come back? We’d already sold the house, the movers were booked, and once a person moves to a new province, there can be a huge, sometimes indefinite delay in getting a doctor and finding medical care.

Things worked out fine for him, ultimately, but we were still doctor-less until just this week, and quite frankly, that was sooner than I could have even hoped. I’m thrilled to check “find a doctor” off our collective to-do list. Just this week we also found a dentist, due to my son somehow cracking his retainer in half and needing a new one, and started the process to renew all of our passports.

Why is dealing with anything government-related so tedious and painful? Remember the last time I had to renew the boys’ passports? At that time I dealt with the most competent government employee who had a zest for his job that I have never seen before or since, and it was still a process and a half. I am steeling myself to go to Service Canada today, thoughts and prayers greatly appreciated.

My dad, in the most dad way possible, has gifted my husband and I, along with our sons when they started driving, motor association memberships every Christmas of our married life, and one of the perks of the membership is the ability to get professional and discounted passport photos, so off we all went to cross this task off our to-do lists. Is there anything less flattering and more distressing than a passport photo? It’s worse even than a driver’s license photo. I pulled my hair into a bun, remembering the last time, when I had to smooth and sleek my hair into oblivion, and prepared myself mentally to see myself as others see me, face in grim repose.

What I didn’t prepare for was the ego-crushing admonishment that I was “too shiny” and had to use blotting papers not once but three times before the photographer was satisfied, and then I had a “there’s something on your face” that turned out to be just my face. Fellow Gen X ladies: it is very hard to unlearn the Matte Or Death lessons of our youth, but in the interest in not looking like one of those dried-apple dolls, I have been using products that are meant to mimic the dewy glow of youth. Am I comfortable with the dewiness? No, I am not. However, I recognize that matte products, on Women Of A Certain Age can exacerbate the physical signs of aging on the skin and YES, I EMBRACE MY AGING PROCESS, and YES, I AM PRO-AGING, but I would also like to not look completely like the afore-mentioned dried-apple doll. And so here I am, using non-matte tinted serums with all the hyaluronic acids and whatnot, and I get a stern talking-to by the passport photographer that I am JUST TOO DAMN SHINY. One cannot win. And then, even with all that shine, my age is vastly apparent, like a dried-apple doll that has been brushed with olive oil. My neck, in this photo and probably in life, resembles a narrow, striated tree trunk, and my facial expression toes the line of sociopath. Well. As I said, there is no good passport photo, and I will continue to never use filters on my regular photos, to lessen the shock value of reality.

Weekly Reading

Open Secrets. After my run of meh books last week, I felt that I had to break the streak with a reread of one of my favourite Alice Munro collections. Well, they are all my favourites, how can a person choose? I have wholeheartedly loved every single story she ever wrote. RIP Alice Munro! As a side note, celebrity deaths almost never affect me, I either think the person has already died, or else I just don’t feel anything at all. But Alice Munro! She was such a gift to the literary world; she was such a beautiful talent and I feel sad she is not in our world anymore. Anyway, this collection is absolutely marvellous, two of the stories – The Albanian Virgin and Carried Away – are stories I think about literally all the time. Can anyone ever say enough about Alice Munro? I know I can’t. I love her so much, and I am sad she is gone. 

Capote’s Women. I have been fascinated by the story of Truman Capote and how he betrayed the high-society, uber-wealthy women who took him into their confidence for years. Side note: there is a TV show about this, the second season of Feud, which I haven’t watched but believe me, I will! Someday. I am not a good TV watcher. Anyway, I was excited about this book because it’s a pretty wild and fascinating story; there are some very juicy details about Babe Paley and Lee Radziwill, who I have been interested in since becoming obsessed with the book What Remains. Imagine being Capote, social climbing and being a bit of a wunderkind, and then writing a book that essentially is a lightly-veiled tell-all of these women’s lives, and then wondering why he became a pariah with them? Imagine being these women, whose whole job is just to keep marrying rich men? How could this book be anything but great? Well, I am sorry to tell you that I really disliked the matter-of-fact writing style and much of it was somehow dull and boring. Oh well.

In garden news this week, not only have we had many salads, but all my smoothies have been made with spinach from the garden and it is a life-changing event. I cannot even tell you how amazing they are. More amazing is that we have already had four ripe strawberries! The first one I photographed like one of my French girls, in several luscious positions. It was delicious.

I hope you all have a delicious week! With all my harvesting, I have been thinking a lot about food, and meal planning, and, most of all, desserts, so I’ll be sure to share all my Yummy Related Thoughts soon. xo

The Return of Baloo

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At about 2:30 in the morning last Thursday, I woke up with a start. I could hear a loud, strange, repetitive noise; sort of like a scraping sound. At first, in my sleepy fog, I thought one of the boys was either coughing or vomiting, and I got up to investigate. Their bathroom door was open and the room was dark and empty empty; both of their doors were firmly shut with no lights coming through the bottoms. I stood there, listening for a few minutes, but I didn’t hear anything. I chalked it up as a weird dream – I have been taking magnesium at night, and I find I sometimes get strange, vivid dreams – and went to bed.

My usual wake time is 4:00, and that day was no exception. I trundled out of bed, whispered good morning to my younger son who also gets up at that hour for work, and padded downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs is a very large window that looks out towards my mother-in-law’s house and, crucially for this story, the side lawn. There, on the side lawn, directly outside the large window, was a very large bear, tearing up a garbage bag and eating its contents.

I stood there, stunned, for just a moment before running up the stairs to grab my son who was, understandably, a little confused at my scream whispers to come here come here come here. He followed me down the stairs so we both could stare at the bear, wondering what to do.

I had to do something. As anyone who has been around wildlife knows, one cannot allow wildlife to eat garbage. Particularly one cannot allow a bear to eat garbage; bears can get easily habituated to it and to people, and that can end up with a problem bear, one who would be in danger of being “destroyed,” as they euphemistically say. But what to do?

The next day, when I related this story to Kate, the woman who does my sugaring, she immediately asked if I had heard about all the internet discourse about whether a woman, alone in the woods, is safer if she meets a man or a bear. “What my first question is,” Kate said, pausing mid-sugar as I had my knee into my chest, naked from the waist down, “Is what kind of bear are we talking about?” That was exactly my question too; the answer is very different between grizzly and black bear, and although I would never discount another woman’s lived experience or trauma, no matter how you slice it, bears are really fucking scary.

This bear, I could tell, was a black bear with brown fur. Because it wasn’t a grizzly, I took a chance on what to do. I knocked on the window. The bear looked up at me and continued to go through the garbage. I knocked a few more times, locking eyes with it in the most aggressive way I could, through a window and still kind of terrified. It got up and lumbered up through the vineyard, to go paw through the neighbouring houses’ garbage, as I found out later that morning.

The reason I bring up the type of bear is that a grizzly could charge, possibly through the window, with that kind of aggressive behaviour from me. I had to take a few deep breaths just typing that. As it was, a giant bear ten feet away from me, even through a window, was extremely unsettling.

I had to go out and clean up the garbage, because I couldn’t risk it coming back for it, but I was terrified. My son and I ascertained the coast was clear, and I ran out, where I discovered where the scraping noise had come from – the black bin we share with my mother-in-law was knocked on its side and pulled away from its usual spot. I cleaned up the garbage, trying not to heave as I picked up my mother-in-law’s kitchen waste that included a lot of slimy eggshells and various meat bones. I locked the garbage up in the shed, which we should have been doing weeks ago, after hibernation season. Better late than never, I guess.

By this time Rex was awake in his crate, and I knew he had to go out. Dogs need to go out in the morning! But I also didn’t want him to be mauled, obviously, and I sent out deep exhalations of gratitude for the large windows. Typically I let him out without a thought, and imagine if I had done that first thing in the morning? I don’t want to imagine it, actually.

I took my big flashlight and went out with him, shining the light around and checking the area frantically. Rex was also checking the area frantically, sniffing and following the scents of the bear on the lawn and into the vines. I looked up to see my mother-in-law at her kitchen window, with the light on. She waved at me and I scurried over to her house. She met me at the door, mistaking the look on my face for concern over her well-being. “I’m fine, dear,” she said, “I was just getting up to use the bathroom and I could see you out here with your flashlight.”

At that point I started incoherently saying words like “bear” and “garbage” and “ahhhhhh!” Here’s a hint for all of you living next door to your octogenarian mother-in-laws, maybe don’t barrage them with bear information at 4:30 in the morning. Maybe wait until later in the morning when you’re calmer. As it was, my frantic demeanor got her so worked up that I literally worried that she was going to have a stroke, but on the upside, she texted everyone in the neighbourhood, who informed her that they too had had an ursine visitor, with scattered garbage to show it.

She missed one person, though, which I found out the next day when Rex and I went in the early morning hours to take the garbage to the street for pickup. Someone had brought their bin up the night before, and it was knocked over, garbage scattered all over the street, to the delight of the magpies.

It’s a stressful situation. It is very unnerving to know that I could look out the window to see a bear; it’s fuel for nightmares, honestly. Even after moving the garbage, the next day it meandered around our house, going through our recycling, which is probably disappointing for it to find nothing but cardboard and washed-out yogurt containers. The very best case scenario is that, in the absence of easily-accessible garbage, the bear will move on in time, and I don’t really want to think about any other scenarios.

Later on Thursday, my son came home from his job at the golf course to show me a photo of a mama coyote with seven – seven! – pups, not fifty feet from the bunker he was working on. Between this and the deer, marmots, and thousands of birds and squirrels I encounter every day, I’m starting to feel like I’m starring in an episode of Lorne Greene’s New Wilderness. Or maybe a Disney movie, with less fluffy dresses and animal harmonizing. I’ll tell you what it’s not: a reenactment of the 1976 Governor General Award winning book, Bear. Do NOT get any ideas, Baloo.

Weekly Reading

Kind of a meh week in terms of reading; I read some very buzzy books that just didn’t hit for me. Here they are:

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone. Let’s say you go to a family reunion in an isolated mountain resort, and let’s say someone at that resort turns up dead. Now let’s say your family is infamous, due to a legacy of crime and murder. Let’s also say that you write “how to write a murder mystery” books for a living. Well! This was an entertainingly and cleverly written murder mystery set in Australia – I had NO idea there were snowy mountain resorts in Australia – but you know what, I am just not a murder mystery person. I keep trying different genres and I just don’t enjoy them – I get confused and then because I’m confused I get bored, I don’t love a lot of action in my books, and so this didn’t really do it for me. BUT if you are a person who likes murder mysteries, particularly the tropes that go with them, then you will probably love this. Definitely this was a “it’s not you, it’s me” problem.

Family Family. First of all, in the author’s note she says she was inspired to write this novel about a woman who is both a birth mother placing babies for adoption, and an adoptive mother herself, for her own child, who was adopted. She wanted to put a novel out there that shows a warm, happy, non-traumatic perspective about adoption, and if that is the goal, then goal accomplished. This is a very sweet and heartwarming story about what makes a family, and a family coming together in the face of a (kind of silly) time of need. It is also a very readable book; this author writes in a smooth, easy-to-read book. I will say that I did not think the storyline was great, and there were many plot holes that I found annoying (i.e., the mother chooses closed adoption, but somehow everyone is able to contact everyone else and knows everything about the adoptive and birth families, the adoptive children are easily able to contact and find the birth children, etc.) but you know what, sometimes a book isn’t meant for in-depth analysis. Sometimes it’s just meant as a love letter, and this is what I think the author set out to do, and did.

Grief Is For People. I have had friends, and friendly acquaintances, die by suicide, and it is a terrible, shocking thing, so I cannot imagine the pain of losing my best friend that way, as the author of this memoir did. The memoir processes her grief, from the burglary of her home one month prior to her best friend’s death, through the pandemic, living in NYC without her best friend. I am sorry to say that the book itself left me feeling flat and kind of confused. I wanted to love it but didn’t. 

Happy June, everyone! I hope you all have a great first week of the month. I have a bit of a busy week ahead of me, all good things, and hopefully bear-free! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Four Province Edition

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I know we all say this every single month, and probably will say this every single month until we shuffle off this mortal coil, but can you even believe that it’s the end of May? Technically, I guess, we refer to the specific month that we are at the end of, not specifically “May.” However, it does feel like every time a month ends no one can believe that the month is ending already, because life is but a time-lapse video of pages flying off a page-a-day calendar, so rapidly that we cannot even, we cannot EVEN. And so it is that Saturday is June, and it’s time once again to talk about my Favourite Things.

This month feels especially fleeting, as I was travelling for almost half of it, and the other half seems to have been spent frantically catching up on all the things I missed while travelling. When I think back to our trip, it feels a bit blurry and fuzzy, like I just woke up and am half-remembering a lovely dream I had. It just seems like it was so long ago already!

The last day of our trip, we drove from Montreal to the Ottawa airport, where we flew to Calgary and then on to Kelowna so, as my husband pointed out to a Very Tired Me, we were in four provinces over a 14 hour period. It’s just like one of those old Bust Loose! European tours in which the clientele visit 9 countries in 8 days, but without the alcohol poisoning and casual sex.

Side note: I never did one of those tours as a youth (or as an older person, I hasten to say) but stories, I have heard them. Hey, if you did, I would love to hear about it! I love stories about my friends and their wayward youths, they are my favourite! And here are the rest of my Favourites, for the month of May.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Four Province Edition

I’m Glad We Were Here Together In Our Nation’s Capital

I used that line from Forrest Gump – god I love that movie, no apologies – many times when we were in Ottawa, both in my head and outwardly, the latter only a few times, as my husband is pretty tired of hearing me talk about the Lieutenant Dan character arc, which inevitably follows any quotation. (I was supposed to be Lieutenant Dan. You are STILL Lieutenant Dan). We are here, in our nation’s capital! I texted the boys, who probably just rolled their eyes as they pressed “like” on my message. Anyway, when it came to Ontario I loved seeing Allison (HI ALLISON) and the Parliament buildings, but my Favourite Thing about the province was – wait for it – the Niagara wine region!

Every once in a while, I will read an article about the dangers of alcohol consumption in general and the negative effects of it on a woman in perimenopause in particular; I will wake up in the middle of the night after a couple of glasses of red wine drenched with sweat, and I will briefly consider a wine-free life. But you know what? I love wine. In fact, I Fucking Love Wine. All week I look forward to Friday when I crack open a bottle and pour myself a nice glass as an end-of-week treat. I especially look forward to it when I know I have a bottle of my Very Favourite Wine, Vineland Estates Cabernet Franc.

I have already discussed how special that winery is to me, but I don’t think I can reiterate enough how delicious this wine is. It is not available for purchase in BC, for long, boring, stupid reasons, and so we had some cases shipped home, including some white and rose. I am not typically a rose gal, but Vineland Estates makes an absolutely wonderful one, so maybe I’ll get myself a Rose All Day tee to wear while sipping.

If Only You Believed In Miracles, We’d Get By

I grew up in the Lutheran church, and let me tell you a little something about Lutherans: they are a very practical, prosaic people. They are not interested in wasting resources on external ornamentation or frivolity, to say the least. There’s going to be a cross, and a couple of stained-glass windows, and maybe a painting depicting the Crucifixion and a banner sewed by one of the ladies in the congregation, but that’s pretty much it.

The first time I remember being in a non-Lutheran church was when I was sixteen, and that non-Lutheran church was St Paul’s Basilica in the Vatican. Go big or go home, I always say. I remember being absolutely overwhelmed with the incredible, excessive beauty of the Basilica, and so began my lifelong interest in visiting historical cathedrals. You might think that I should have saved something as momentous as St Paul’s for later in life, but sometimes life is mysterious and the road is long and winding.

On our trip to Quebec we drove the extra 30 km outside of Quebec City to visit the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre. It’s one of the biggest churches in Canada and has the reputation for miracles, attracting pilgrims from all over. The front of the church has a display of crutches, canes, and walkers that were left by pilgrims who did not need them anymore.

Now, I am not Catholic, nor have I even attended a church service in many years, but I do believe in a higher power and I do believe that sometimes, things happen that cannot be explained by our practical world, and maybe those things are miracles. I mean, who knows? The power of the mind is very strong, and while I wouldn’t rely on miracles, I wouldn’t reject them either. Of course, I am a person who, in the vein of Mary Oliver, thinks that seeds sprouting, flowers blooming, and the sun rising and moon falling are pure, everyday miracles, so I might not be that discerning. But just because science or logic can explain something doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous, and, in an opposite vein, sometimes miraculous things happen that cannot be explained by science or logic. In any case, no one builds a church like the Catholics, and I felt myself in awe of the beauty.

Across from the church is a hill, and there are life-sized Stations of the Cross built into it beside a memorial chapel. Walking through the Way of the Cross, I thought of my grandma Fern and missed her terribly.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

One of my very Favourite things to do when I visit my parents – other than eating, drinking, and spending time with them – is going to Bentley, Alberta, which is home of Merry’s Mercantile. My friend Merry (HI MERRY) has a wonderful little boutique that is filled with absolute happiness, and it changes all the time: she sells clothing and home goods, gifts and cards, retro treats and vintage goods. Salvadore the gnome came from there, and my mom and I drive out whenever I’m visiting. This time we took my aunt as well, and had a great time. Something always speaks to me in her little shop, and this time it was this mug:

I mean. Was it made just for me? It feels like it. I also bought a matching one for my aunt, which says “Because I’m a fucking lady, that’s why.” What can I say, it felt right.

And just because we are talking about Merry’s Mercantile, I thought you would all be interested to see Salvadore in his new environment. Finally, he’s finished with the Menopause Manifesto!

Inch By Inch, Row By Row

On my birthday, we planted the seeds for the garden, and everything is up and growing, with the exception of the oregano, which I have since replanted. My very first harvest was last week, and it was cilantro! Longtime readers will remember my indoor cilantro garden, which I no longer have – and I have missed fresh cilantro so very much. It feels like an absolute gift to just go out and cut some at a whim.

We also have so much kale, spinach, and romaine lettuce already. We had our first kale harvest on Sunday, and another of kale and spinach on Tuesday, and you can barely tell that I cut it, we have so much in the garden. It’s all salads, all the time around here now.

Outfit of the Month

I am so proud of myself for travelling for two weeks with only a carryon. As a former overpacker, I feel like I have made a significant shift in my life, and as god is my witness, I will never check a bag again, if I can help it.

Let me tell you about this coat: it is a workhorse. I bought it from Lululemon when my children were in preschool, and I think it still looks pretty great. It’s waterproof and lined, so it was perfect for this trip which was relatively cool and sometimes rainy.

I mostly wore it with jeans, a black top, and Skechers, which were perfect for walking around. Since we were outside touring around most of the time, almost every single photo of me is in this coat. I hope it lasts me forever.

May was such a fun month, but I am looking forward to a quieter existence for June. We will be sticking close to home, which, although he is a good traveller, I think Rex will be happy about.

What have you loved this month? Tell me everything. xo

More Weeding, More Reading

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This is probably a strange thing to admit, because I know that generally it is a task that is dreaded and disliked, but I actually kind of love weeding. Like the laundry, or cleaning the kitchen, or really cleaning anything at all in my house (I’m currently looking with a side-eye at my fuzzy companion, due to whom we never have clean floors for more than thirty minutes), the weeding is never done. It reminds me so much of Newman’s meltdown about the mail, how it never stops. That’s how it is with weeding, the weeds just keep coming and coming.

But maybe that’s what I like about it, that there is always something that needs tending. I also find weeding to be very meditative; typically when I’m performing dull, repetitive tasks I listen to podcasts or music, but when I weed I leave my phone and earbuds in the house, and it’s just me and the weeds, with the sounds of the outdoors around me. There’s something so calming about feeling the warmth of the sun with my hands in the dirt. It’s absolutely a meditation.

This week I found myself meditating a lot on friendship, and the role of social media in our lives. I have been reminding myself of the platitude that friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. What is interesting to me is how social media has changed that in some ways; people who we lose touch with decades ago can come back into our life via the miracle that is social media.

I think of one of the closing lines of Desiderata nearly every day: With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. This sentiment could easily be manipulated to be applied to social media: With all its sham, fakery, and advertisements, it is still a beautiful thing. So many incredible people have come back into my life and I have met so many people on social media channels who make my life richer and more interesting.

In a way, it’s changed the for a lifetime part of the platitude, because although I might not be intimate with my childhood best friends or my group from junior high, I still feel like I know them. I know their children’s names and what they look like, and sometimes I even know what they are eating for dinner or where they are travelling to. I love that. It’s an incredible way to stay connected, and I don’t think that I would be connected with these people were it not for social media.

I fully understand the pitfalls of social media, of course, but as a woman my age I’m pretty much over comparing my life to anyone else’s. I like to celebrate when others are celebrating, I want to commiserate when others are sad or in mourning, and I really do like to see what other people are eating for dinner. I know that mindless scrolling can be not only a waste of time, but also detrimental to my attention span and general wellness, and so I apply boundaries to my Instagramming and Facebooking and I stick to them.

There is one part of social media that I fall prey to, though, and that is the advertising. Wow, am I a soft touch. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I have purchased – and, I hasten to add, absolutely loved – at least three products that were marketed to me on Instagram, and although I don’t buy a lot of things, I definitely look at the advertising reels and think about them intensely. You should see my algorithm, you guys. It’s almost entirely makeup and skincare for “the older woman,” plus shapewear. The other evening I was glancing at my feed and I accidentally mused out loud Miracle Balm, hmm, do I need Miracle Balm? The responses from the men in the house was immediate and emphatic.

My younger son: NO.

My husband: What? How many products do you already use every day? Forty? You don’t need forty-one.

My older son: You can’t stop the forward march of time, Mom.

Well, they are probably right, other than my husband’s conjecture about the number of products I use. I don’t know exactly how many I use, it depends on the day, but surely it’s less than forty. Surely. In any case, it’s true, you can’t stop the forward march of time. No matter how miraculous the balm.

Weekly Reading

There are two things I wanted to tell you before I get to the two very excellent and entertaining books that I read this week. The first is that I guest-posted over on Engie’s blog (HI ENGIE), and I talked about twenty favourite books that I have each read at least three times. Technically there are twenty-two, since I slipped Heidi and Deenie in at the end. Anyway, I wrote it a few weeks ago but since I was travelling, I wasn’t able to link up. Here it is, I hope you enjoy!

The second thing I wanted to say – and this is notable since I rarely do it – is that I DNFed a book this week. I have been trying to do this more, as I have a tendency to push through with books I am not enjoying, which is a waste of time, really. A woman in my writing group had strongly recommended a Japanese series, the first of which was Before The Coffee Gets Cold. She was so enthusiastic that I just put it on hold without looking up what it was about. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered it was all about time-travel; longtime readers will remember how I loathe time-travel as a literary device. I started it all the same, slogging through the first forty pages, and then I remembered my resolution to DNF if I am not enjoying a book. Freedom!

After I Do. Friends, I could not put down this book about a young married couple who fall out of love. It was one of the most intensely readable books I have had in a while! It was all about the little quirks that we have that are endearing, but maybe on a day to day basis become really irritating to our partners, and vice versa. It’s also about how small resentments (think: arguments about where the car is parked) can become fury-inducing, and how a lack of communication can tank a relationship. I mean, who among us hasn’t felt Hulk-level rage at something ridiculous like a toilet paper roll not being put in the recycle but instead left on the bathroom counter for all eternity? Anyway, this couple takes a year separation to see if their marriage can be saved, it’s a circuitous route that struck me as odd, but such a satisfying and engrossing read. I was so invested in these characters. Interesting note: this was written in 2014, and the author has gone on to have massive success. I have read a few of her very popular books and I didn’t enjoy them half as much as I did this. 

Happiness Falls. I don’t know what I thought this book would be like, but it wasn’t this – and I LOVED IT. What an incredibly written book with such a unique and original voice. A father goes missing and the only one who has clues to this is his autistic, non-speaking fourteen year old son. The rest of the family, along with the police, try to piece together what happened and if the son is at all to blame. As a side note, the father has been researching the notion of happiness, trying to quantify it in terms of baselines – if you come in from a cold, rainy day and warm up, you’re happier than if you never left the house, for example. It’s given me lots of fascinating things to think about. If you read this, be sure to read the author’s note on how she came up with the idea, because it’s very interesting.

Don’t worry, I won’t be exclusively writing about weeding for the next five months. OR WILL I? Will weeding become my new grocery shopping, in terms of blog topics? Stay tuned! xo

Weeding, Flowers, and Semi-Mindful Consumption

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I discovered another, only slightly-distressing but still inconvenient victim of the Big Move this past week, with all the weeding I have been doing – hours and hours of weeding, people – and that is my trusty old nail brush. I had the cutest little nail brush in the shape of a foot – and the foot shape itself was a little pumice – that dates back to the early 2000s, and, if memory serves me correctly, was in a gift box of Body Shop items related to foot care, including what I thought was discontinued, but is only rebranded, peppermint foot lotion.

Slight digression: has anyone else noticed the rebranding and repackaging of Cover Girl items? Cover Girl has really upped its game; the packaging is so sleek and pretty now, and they have a whole new “clean” line as well. I kind of dislike the “clean” labelling because it implies anything else I put on my face is mud collected from the off-leash dog park, but my beloved Aunty C swears by their new line of clean mascaras, and I feel that is a notable recommendation, albeit not one I have personally tried. I’m a Maybelline Surreal Falsies girl, as we all know.

Anyway, back to the nail brush. I have no idea if, in my stressful packing of last year, I threw it out, or if it is just another lost item, not as soul-destroying as the bookmarks, but annoying nonetheless. I think it must be the former, because nothing else bathroom-related is missing – THAT I KNOW OF – and who is to say what my mental state was at the time? I was probably singing along to Miley Cyrus’ The Climb and crying while I packed the bathroom, so it’s perfectly possible that it hit the trash. It was somewhat stained from the time my younger son had to stain his woodworking project at home and hence used it to scrub off the chocolate-brown wood stain all over his hands, so maybe I just tossed it.

Well, when you need a nail brush, you need a nail brush, and although I generally wear gloves while gardening, I somehow still get dirt underneath my nails, which is not a look I am going for. I am trying to Consume Mindfully these days and avoid unnecessary purchases, keeping in mind that my husband will leave me and my mother will disown me if I ever do a No-Shopping Year again. I chalked this up as a Highly Necessary Item and immediately ordered one, along with some new protein powder.

Late last year, both Engie and Elisabeth (HI ENGIE HI ELISABETH) recorded their beauty expenditures, in relation to what is known as the Beauty Tax, whereas the average (American) woman spends $877 on her appearance annually, whereas her male counterpart spends $592. I was completely shocked by those numbers because I blow them out of the water. My health and beauty expenditures vary wildly from month-to-month, depending on what runs out or if my pricey hair supplements have shipped, but let me tell you, as of this moment in time I am way, way, WAY over the annual average, and it’s only mid-May. The reason I even bring this up is that protein powder expenditures are “supposed” to be included in the total, which I think is stupid, as to me this is an important way to bump up my protein for my overall health, not a beauty product. Although, now that I’ve typed that out, I guess health does affect beauty, particularly hair and skin, so FINE I WILL INCLUDE THE PROTEIN POWDER. Be right back, I have to go update my spreadsheet.

In terms of Mindful Consumption, I have been really trying to use up what I have before I purchase more of any particular item, whether it be a beauty product or anything for the household like, say, chickpeas. Of course, that makes me a little anxious because as of Friday I was down to the last can of chickpeas and I used it up to make hummus, which means no more chickpeas until grocery day. This is a stressful situation to be in. What if I want to put roasted chickpeas on something? What then? I guess I would have to suffer through until Wednesday. Other than that, this is working fairly well, except that I somehow currently have seventeen bottles of Bath and Body Works lotion. Am I inadvertently hoarding? Well, I won’t buy ANY more, at least until I’m down to three or four.

I did decide to Mindfully Purge my underwear and sock drawer. It’s a strange cognitive dissonance that I can happily add one more black top to my many, many drawers full of black tops, but I have a total block when it comes to buying new socks, panties, or – and especially – bras. After a ten-minute interval in which I a) could see the state of my pedicure through my worn-out socks, b) put my (clean) fingernail through the lace in a pair of panties and ripped it nearly in half, and c) examined myself in the mirror to see that my bra cups gaped so much that I could literally stuff my worn-out socks in there, like I was a character in a Judy Blume book, I decided enough was enough. ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. I ruthlessly went through everything and then REPLACED all the worn and ill-fitting items, including three new bras. We all know my weird laziness when it comes to buying new bras, and here I am! I’m a new woman! One who isn’t wearing socks with holes in them or bras that are in need of stuffing.

On the topic of clothing, I love looking at what other people are wearing, not just for events, but for regular day-to-day living. I think you can tell a lot about a person and what kind of day they are having by what they are wearing at the grocery store, an outing to which is a huge part of my day-to-day life (only two days until more chickpeas). I love seeing elderly ladies all dressed up in slacks and blouses, with their hair done and lipstick on, and I also love seeing young moms with their messy buns, frazzled faces, washable outfits, and carts full of small people and Goldfish crackers. I love seeing people in their pajama pants, with a I Don’t Give A Fuck About Your Societal Rules look on their faces. There’s something invigorating about a person who will NOT conform to the Pajamas Are For Home canon.

The other day I passed a young man in the cereal aisle; he was wearing a ribbed white tank top, low riding jeans, and a pukka shell necklace. He also had a moustache and a mullet, and I reminded myself that I had not travelled back in time, young men are often in mullets and moustaches these days. I was marvelling about this to myself, wondering if I lived to 100 how many returns of the mullet I would see in my lifetime, when I found myself next to an older man, who was notable only for a scowl on his face and a t-shirt that read “I Tested Positive For Freedom,” which was embellished with a maple leaf.

Well. Fashion is there to make a statement, and that man certainly was, but what I couldn’t help but think was you’re still wearing that in 2024? Aren’t we done this by now? He was older, but there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t live another 15 or 20 years, and I wondered if he would still be wearing it then, and what, if any, the public reaction would be. Perhaps I’m overthinking this, perhaps it was just the first shirt he grabbed when he got dressed that morning. Perhaps he, like me, is trying to Consume Mindfully and did not see any reason not to wear a perfectly serviceable t-shirt, one with no visible rents or stains. Or perhaps he really wants everyone to know his particular outlook on life. I typically smile at or chat with everyone I encounter at the grocery store, but you know what, I just picked up the oatmeal from the shelf we were both looking at, and swerved around him silently.

Weekly Reading

I Was Told There Would Be Cake. I heard this woman speak on a podcast a few months ago, and immediately put her new memoir on hold. I mentioned this to Bijoux (HI BIJOUX) who told me that the author also had a book of essays, from around 2008. It was so enjoyable and fun, and gave me good nostalgia for life in my twenties.

The Interestings. My favourite kind of book is a character-driven book, and this is definitely that. I became very invested in the lives of the six – plus a husband – people who become friends at summer camp, and whose lives diverge fairly widely after they become adults. I love thinking about the roads that we take in our lives, how things change as we age, and this book is all about that. This is a very real book about the ordinariness of life, and how secrets and lies and bad decisions can haunt people for years. There is a lot in this book about envy, and how it can be poisonous, but also how we all have our burdens to bear, no matter what our lives look like from the outside.

Just in case you all were wondering, I did get almost caught up on weeding yesterday morning, when it suddenly and dramatically started to pour rain. By the time it stopped I was all showered and made up and did not feel like getting grubby all over again, so hopefully I will get caught up this morning. Although in the afternoon I had a cup of tea and the teabag said “The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgement,” and I will say, I felt judged myself. Judged by my own teabag.

Mostly, though, I am excited about the garden and about all the irises that are currently blooming.

Rex is excited about the grass.

May we all have such joy and excitement on a daily basis! xo

Five For Friday: The Three Province Tour Reading List Edition

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I’ve been home for only five days and yet it seems as though my trip is already a dimly-remembered thing of the past. It’s so strange how that happens. It doesn’t take me long to get back into the rhythm of things, but it does take a lot of effort to catch up on life after a week away. There’s just so much to do! The groceries, the laundry, the weeding, my god, the weeding. Three weeks of weeds is a lot of weeds, friends.

I managed to get some reading done, with all the hours on the plane and in airports, and in the occasional downtime in the evening. I have to say that it is a very eclectic mix of books – a dense nonfiction looking at the polarization of society, a second-chance romance, a thriller (I know! Me! Reading a thriller!), a very long novel about the Partition of India, and a YA book.

Doppelganger. In the social media world and beyond, Naomi Klein has been confused with Naomi Wolf for years – both are radical writers of import named Naomi, after all. And I will say two things: first, I had confused Naomi Klein with Norma Klein, who wrote that YA book Sunshine back in the 70s. (Me: Oh wow, I loved that book! Also me: wait, that’s NOT by Naomi Klein?) (Also, I can understand the mix-up, I always get John Irving confused with John Grisham). Second, in the 90s I really loved Naomi Wolf’s writing – her Beauty Myth and Promiscuities were very formative for me. I was disappointed when she started to go off the rails; I think it was Fire With Fire that I stopped really reading or paying attention to her, and then she had a real fact-checking issue with her book Outrages. By then, she was off my radar.
She really went off the rails during Covid and this book focuses a lot about that – the polarity and divisions in our world. This was a fascinating, balanced, dense, well-researched book about the polarity of our world and the notion of doppelgängers. It goes to Nazi Germany and Canadian Indigenous culture, to autism and the treatment of people who think differently. There’s so much here, too much for me even to recap – it’s all balanced and compassionate too. A very thought-provoking, intelligent, fascinating read.

Every Summer After. I love reading Canadian novels and it’s neat reading one set in Ontario when I was actually in Ontario! Okay, I was on Lake Ontario, not Ontario’s lake country but still. This was a pretty cute second-chance romance; I didn’t love it due to the plot twist, which felt really weird and off-putting to me, but I enjoyed it well enough.

The Last Word. I don’t read thrillers very often but this was a ride! I’m not well versed in this genre but it seems to me that this was super creative and original. I think the moral of the story is…think before you give a book a one star rating? Anyway, it was very fun and there were so many twists and unexpected turns. I didn’t love the graphic violence or stressful “Will the dog be okay?” moments but I’m a baby for that kind of stuff, I think people who enjoy thrillers will like this a lot, because I did even with all that.

What The Body Remembers. If you, like me, enjoy a lot of symbolism in character portrayals, then you are going to really enjoy this book about the Partition and the ensuing horror and chaos that came with it. India is a country rich with culture and this book showed me a different perspective than I have read before – that of a Sikh family. It focuses mainly on two women, a junior and a senior wife, but it also encompasses the political and social changes of that time. Married to a wealthy landowner who is also an engineer working with the British government, Satya has failed to do the one thing she is supposed to do: have a baby, or more accurately, a son. Roop is brought in as junior wife to do just that; she visualizes herself as being a loved younger sister to Satya, and as you can imagine, this does not happen. I wished there was a “cast of characters” at the beginning of the book to keep all the characters straight – there are just so many and they are referred to by different names and nicknames, and it’s hard to figure out who is related to whom and how. It’s kind of chaotic, but I guess that is in keeping with the theme of the book.

The Statistical Probability of Love A First Sight. I don’t typically read YA anymore, because I am 49 and mostly I identify with the parents in such books. But someone (who WAS it? Was it you?) recommended this and oh, what a sweet, cute little book it was! Totally heartwarming and cute story about a pair of teens meeting on a plane on their way to the UK, where the protagonist is going to her father’s second wedding.

Happy long weekend to my fellow Canadians, and happy regular weekend to everyone else! In true May long fashion, it’s cool and rainy today. Will I still be weeding? Yes, I will. Have you read anything good lately? I currently have SIX library books on my side table and three more that need to be picked up this weekend, so I guess if I’m not weeding, I’m reading! xo