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

She’s Here! She’s There!

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She’s every-fucking-where! I was channeling my inner Roy Kent over the past three weeks, metaphorically speaking, of course. I did not somehow obtain massive celebrity due to my sudden ability to play football at a premier level. I was, however, on a three-province tour, and I really hope you are humming the words three province tour to the tune of the theme from Gilligan’s Island.

My husband and I have long toyed with the idea of driving across Canada, but after we moved here, reality set in. People, I do not have the bandwidth for a weeks-, or maybe months-long road trip. I don’t think my husband does either. I don’t want to be away from home that long, for one thing, and for another, I do not want to be in a vehicle for an extended period of time.

But I do want to see more of our beautiful country; I feel like I have experienced so little. Other than Western Canada, which I have definitely seen a lot of, I have been to Toronto, and that’s pretty much it. My husband and I talked at length about how to see Canada, and we decided we would fly to parts unexplored, and then drive to where we wanted to go. As we all know, I am not the trip planner in this relationship, and so my husband got busy figuring out the logistics of it all.

One of the drawbacks to moving to Kelowna is that the airport is pretty small, and direct flights are not always available, and so it was the case for our flights to Ottawa. However, we are let’s make the best of it kind of people, and so we took advantage of our flight through Calgary, turning it into an overnight to spend with friends before embarking to our capital city. The first leg of our trip we were hosted by friends, spending three nights with them and doing some light touring. The absolute highlight for me was the afternoon I got to spend with Allison (HI ALLISON)!

Allison and I have been friends for probably fourteen years, but we haven’t seen each other in person for a decade. She’s the kind of warm, wonderful person with whom it is easy to just pick up where we left off – of course, we chat at least three or four times a week, so “where we left off” is pretty recent. I arrived at her house starving, having toured the Diefenbunker for two hours – apparently memories of the Cold War from a tour guide who actually was stationed at the Diefenbunker in the 60s really works up an appetite – and she had freshly-made guacamole, freshly-baked biscuits, apples, and, of course, snack mix.

After Ottawa, we drove to the Niagara region, and by “we,” I mean “my husband,” while I navigated. Some of you may remember that my favourite wine in the world is Vineland Estates Cabernet Franc; well, the head winemaker at Vineland is my husband’s lifelong friend Brian (HI BRIAN), and, in fact, the friendship goes back three generations as their dads and grandpas were also friends and grape-growers in the Okanagan. Brian put us up in his gorgeous guest house and toured us around the vineyard and winery, showing us the special wine cellar and also the block of Pinot Meunier, the cuttings of which plants came from my late father-in-law decades ago. Isn’t that a special thing?

You can’t go to Niagara without going to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and I was so excited to see all the beautiful tulips in bloom. I had hoped to see tulips in bloom in Ottawa, which had come from the Netherlands as a gift to Canada for our country’s service in World War II, but it was slightly too early for them. But Niagara-on-the-Lake did not disappoint!

And of course, you can’t go to Niagara without going to Niagara Falls. What a wild ride that was, literally.

Niagara Falls is so funny. I did not expect to see giant dinosaurs at a mini-golf course, many fun houses, carnival rides, and wax museums alongside one of the natural wonders of the world, but here we were. We took the boat into the falls area, and then went on a guided walking tour, which ended up behind and underneath the falls.

After Niagara we headed back to Ottawa for a night; my husband thought we would take the TransCanada back just for a different driving experience, and whoa, we were not expecting an undivided two lane highway with an 80 km/hr speed limit. Well, it was pretty, if slow.

This leg of our trip was the start of our CP Hotel experience – I am a big fan of the fancy CP Hotels, and the Chateau Laurier was incredible. I mean, if it’s good enough for my birthday twin, QEII, as well as Princess Di and the Queen Mum, I guess it’s good enough for me.

We wandered around the Parliament buildings and the Rideau Canal all evening.

The next day we headed to Quebec City, and friends, I was not prepared at all for how much I was going to love Old Quebec.

Once you enter the old fortification walls to Old Quebec, it’s like being transported to a little cobblestoned town in Europe. We stayed at the Frontenac, which is right in the middle of everything, and we spent all our time walking around those beautiful streets, to the Citadel and the Plains of Abraham, taking breaks for amazing food and to warm up on the Gold Floor of the hotel, which we had splurged on.

After Quebec City we headed to Montreal, where we stayed at the Reine Elizabeth, took in the light show at Notre Dame and had the most amazing dinner.

Not to brag, but I won the medal for Top Student in French in 1988; I have not, however, used those skills since about 1990 so I had to brush up a little before we ventured into Quebec. I can generally understand French if it is written or spoken very slowly, but my conversational skills are, shall we say, poor. Having grown up in Alberta, I had this outdated idea that Quebecers would be very dismissive of English-speakers’ attempts at French, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Everyone we met was SO kind and lovely, and seemed to appreciate my non-skills. Desolee, je parle francais tres mal.

We were able to visit with my husband’s cousins, who live in Montreal, and, despite pouring rain, gave us a little walking tour. The next day we drove back to Ottawa – a total of 2390 km driven – and then flew through Calgary back home. It was a super long day and, honestly, I was pretty exhausted.

If that wasn’t enough driving, though, we were home two days before we were on the road again. This time we took Rex with us and drove nine and a half hours to visit my parents. It was my mom’s birthday, and my beloved Aunty C was visiting as well, so we all had a great time together.

We drove the Icefields Parkway, rather than through Calgary, and we ran into some traffic.


After flying across the country and driving 4000 kilometres, I am ready to be home for a while! I have so much more to say, stories to tell, and books to talk about – and the garden, you guys, there is so much happening in the garden, I cannot EVEN – but this week is going to be all about catching up on life! And also on my blog reading; I currently have 194 unread posts, which I will be getting to hopefully in the next few days! In the meantime, I missed you all. Tell me what’s going on! Give me all the details. xo

Miner Miner Forty Niner

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Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 49. My last birthday in my forties! I have really loved my forties, and I hope this last year before I can say that I’m nifty and fifty will be just as great.

I love birthdays. This isn’t news to anyone who has known me even tangentially – I love my birthday, of course, but I love everyone else’s too. I mean, it was the day you arrived on the planet (and blinking, stepped into the sun). I hope we all have THAT song running through our heads now. Mind songs aside, birthdays are a wonderful time to celebrate people for just existing; you don’t need to do anything, you just need to be here.

I get more ponderous about life than I typically do around my birthday, which is to say very ponderous indeed. Years ago, in one of my senior yoga classes, a student said something about how this aging thing is for the birds, and another countered with at least we’re on this side of the grass. I would say that not being dead is a pretty excellent part of aging; that sounds sarcastic, but just last week I heard that a very beloved and popular yoga teacher in Calgary passed away at age 52. This is just one more example in a long line of examples of people I know whose lives have been cut too short, and I for one will never not be grateful for just being here.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the interviewer said something that really stuck with me: When we say “I don’t feel old,” what we are saying in essence is “I don’t feel irrelevant,” or “I don’t feel invisible.” The language that we use around aging is absolutely fascinating to me, and I thought about this all week. Our culture uses very positive language around youth, and negative language around aging – “antiaging” products to obtain a “youthful” glow, for example – and I don’t want to subscribe to that. Let’s put a little pin in that for now.

Something that is very interesting to me is how we ascribe a certain look to a certain age; for example, one will frequently hear the refrain “She doesn’t look X years old” or “She doesn’t look a day over X.” But how do we know what X looks like? There are just so many variables. Let us never forget that Rue McClanahan was 51 when she played Blanche on The Golden Girls. So who is to say how old someone looks? There are no rules anymore.

A key characteristic of being young is being unaware of the beauty that is present in ourselves, merely by being young. It is a fact of life that one does not realize just how beautiful they are simply by possessing that special glow of youth; instead, we realize it much later, at some point in the future. We are just so socialized to be constantly unhappy with our physical appearance: our weight, skin, hair, clothes, and features are all subject to criticism and are a source of deep unhappiness. How many of us were satisfied with our looks at 16, 18, 22? I would say probably none. And yet, and YET we were all beautiful, in the way that the young are always beautiful, and in twenty years we will be looking at photos of ourselves as we are right now, thinking how young and beautiful we look. I mean, why wait the 20 years? Why not appreciate ourselves right this minute?

I have been having a bit of an epiphany over the past several months; I have tried to condition myself to really lean in to the physical signs of aging. After all, I’m in a different life stage, no different from when I was pregnant and was constantly fascinated by and in admiration of my own body. Now I’m just on the other side of the fecundity spectrum, and why should that not be a time of fascination and admiration? Have I started developing jowls, and do I have loose skin under my chin that can only be described as a wattle? Yes. But short of surgery, there is nothing to be done about it, so why not appreciate my kind of melting face? Sure, I’m discovering why ladies of a certain age prefer elastic-waisted pants due to my figure becoming rectangular, and sure, my neck is rivaling Nora Ephron’s, but this is my stage of life, and I am just going to lean all the way in. Look at my beautiful grey roots!

Okay, maybe I’m not leaning THAT far in. I’m still going to colour my hair. I’m still going to use my retinol creams, my products to prevent hair thinning, all my makeup. But the point is I’m on the right side of the grass, and I’m not going to waste one more moment of my wild and precious life being unhappy with my looks.

A few months ago, someone – with, I’m sure, the best of intentions – told me, very helpfully, that every Thursday at Shopper’s Drug Mart is Seniors’ Day, and I could therefore receive a 20% discount on all purchases. I am not exactly sure what my facial expression looked like, but the person quickly said not to worry, the definition of senior is someone over 55, not 65. Now listen, there is nothing stigmatizing about being over 55, but a person wants to actually BE over 55 to be assumed that they are over 55, even for those of us working on our positive language around aging. It took me a moment, but I managed to say that I was not actually eligible for this discount, and then the conversation took what can only be described as a weird and awkward turn: they started to guess my age, going backward from 54. I stopped them when they got to 51 and said I was 48, at which point they said “Oh wow, really?”

So.

Maybe that’s when my epiphany started. Because believe you me, this conversation was not at all pleasant to me at the time, but looking back on it, it’s pretty funny. It’s also interesting, circling back to stigmatizing language, and how we assign an age a person looks versus the age that they are. This is what 49 looks like!

It looks different for everybody, of course – one woman’s 49 is another woman’s 55, evidently – but I for one am celebrating another turn around the sun.

Weekly Reading

The Whispers. I could NOT put this book down. Wow, what an incredibly told, compelling story about a child who suffers an accident and his mother who feels intense guilt about that accident. There are so many twists and surprises, and an intense, gloriously satisfying ending. This book is a real statement on the incredible complexities of motherhood, about neighbourhoods and relationships. I read and enjoyed this author’s first book, The Push, but let me tell you, this book leaves that one in the dust. It is SO well done and I am obsessed with it. What a ride!

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. I’m very mixed. On the one hand, the author’s research and intelligent points about time – how it’s measured, what is a clock and where did it come from, how do we utilize our time – are impressive. On the other hand, the writing style is very thick and tedious to me. It was a drag to read, honestly, and I don’t feel like what I got out of it was worth the time it took to read this. It was a slog.

Pete and Alice In Maine. When I heard this premise, I thought “Lucy By The Sea!” But friends, this is definitely not Lucy By The Sea, even if it is a story of a couple whose marriage is in trouble who flee New York with their two young children to their summer house in Maine, in early 2020. Now. A couple of things. It is a very real portrayal of the actual things people went through – children suddenly isolated from their friends, the inability to get toilet paper, the massive fear and sudden loathing of other people who are not behaving in the same way we are. So it is very realistic, except for the dialogue, which is ridiculously unnatural. Ridiculously. Every time a character spoke, it took me out of the story. The characters are all completely unlikeable – maybe a commentary on how people were at that time, I don’t know. The social commentary is pretty heavy-handed too. The ending is ambiguous which I usually like, but in this case it just seemed abrupt and strange. All in all, not an enjoyable reading experience for me, but who knows, maybe it will work for you.

I had a really wonderful birthday; we planted the garden, with the exception of tomatoes and peppers, I had a nice morning hike with Rex, and then the guys and I went out for dinner, coming back home for an epically delicious cake afterwards. I am so lucky.

In other news, I am taking a bloggy break for a couple of weeks, and when I’m back I will have lots of adventures to share with you! I look forward to catching up with all of you then, and so for now, take care of yourselves, my beautiful friends. xo