Conversations With Strangers

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Last Wednesday marked the beginning of Tiny Secret Festive Season! If you’re new here, welcome! Everyone is welcome in the Boyhouse. Also, if you’re new, you may be wondering what even is Tiny Secret Festive Season. The short answer is that it is something that I have created to enjoy the Christmas holiday spirit in the face of those who think that November 1st is Too Early to start being jolly. Generally in Canada “Too Early” can be defined loosely as “Anytime Before Remembrance Day, You Disrespectful Bitch” all the way to December 1st. In the US, the consensus seems to be “Before US Thanksgiving.”

But why should there be time restrictions on Being Jolly, I ask, and so Tiny Secret Festive Season was born. Now, if you are a person who is in agreement with the Too Early sentiment, well, you are still welcome here but just know that I am keeping it a secret from you, hence the Secret part of Tiny Secret Festive Season. On the other hand, if you’re a person who likes to mimic Costco and start your Holiday Jolliness in July, well, that’s not really Tiny, is it? You’re still welcome here, in fact, I salute you! But that is not what Tiny Secret Festive Season is.

The key is that one must incorporate small, festive items into everyday life, so on the outside one is just living a regular everyday life. But on the inside! Secretly there are small things that are making our Inner Elf feel known. For me, that means a) festive hand soaps by the major-use sinks, b) wearing my Christmas bracelet every day, c) using Vanilla Candy Cane foot cream, d) hanging holiday-themed tea towels on the oven door, e) playing holiday music for my daily piano practice, f) wearing holiday-themed pajamas, and g) using Christmas napkins at the dinner table.

In other festive news, we had not two but THREE Trick-or-Treaters on Tuesday! I gave my husband a meaningful look as I dropped a few assorted full-sized bars in the little girl’s pillowcase; the lesson, people, is to always buy extra candy. I think this is a lesson not just for Halloween, but for life. Now, was I a little surprised to get a knock on my door when I was in my pajamas with no makeup on and a face full of night cream? I was. But I overcame them, in the spirit of the holiday.

Speaking of which, I do think the myriad night creams and serums are working, in that my skin is softer and more, dare I say, radiant, but there is nothing in this world that is going to fix my raging case of Bitchy Resting Face. It’s pretty bad, friends. Several years ago I was at a get-together with friends from high school, who I hadn’t seen since those days, and a man looked at me and said that I looked disgusted with everyone. I replied with surprise that this is just my face in repose.

One area in my life that happily appears unaffected by my Bitchy Resting Face is that people, particularly strangers, are apt to talk to me very openly about a wide variety of topics. Maybe I give out an aura that I want to know everything about them, which is true, I do. People are endlessly fascinating to me. I think that small talk is a wonderful way to connect to people in this shared human experience, and it often, for me, leads to incredibly involved discussions about someone else’s life. I think that people are often very lonely, and just want someone to listen to them, and when I die I hope my photo evokes conversational memories for the populace. Oh hey, that’s the woman I talked to about my eyelashes and how I was using that new L’Oreal Telescopic mascara while we were in the security line at the airport.

Eyelashes are definitely a hot topic of conversation for me these days – are they real, if not, what mascara are you using – and much preferred to the one I once had about the occasional utilization of Smooth Move tea on days that a person is, shall we say, backed up. This conversation took place after a yoga class, with a young yoga student who was just in my class. I generally do not want to talk about bowel movements – I am even grossed out by the poop emoji, do NOT text me with that thing – but I guess I am happy that I’m a safe space for such discussions, and also that I am clearly just a regular gal. Also, I should probably not be so squeamish; after all, as the children’s book says, Everybody Poops.

I can talk to pretty much anyone about a wide variety of topics, is what I’m saying.

Sometimes, looking back, I have no clue how lighthearted chitchat turns so intense. In the last two months alone things have escalated. I don’t know how the piano tuner got on the topic of how his wife died of cancer only four days before their thirty-third anniversary, but I was happy to hear he’s found love again in the shape of his colleague at the middle school they have both worked at for twenty-five years. I’m not sure why the woman with the cute Labradoodle at the dog park tearfully told me that she yelled at her children that morning for losing their shoes and then cried after school drop off, but I’m glad our dogs could play together while I assured her that parenting IS hard. I’m still a bit worried about the cashier whose dad was in the hospital with what they thought was a gall bladder flare; he’s ninety-six and she was waiting for The Call. I felt badly for the older gentlemen couple on the walking path who just got back from two weeks in Paris in which they never got over their jet lag and also stayed at a very high priced, but inconvenient location, dissuading them from going to Europe ever again.

Possibly the most interesting conversation with a stranger of late was at, of all places, Superstore, and in this case I actually DO know how one topic segued into the next. I complimented the cashier on her Tree of Life necklace, which led, immediately and startlingly, to how she wanted to turn into a tree when she died, as opposed to being cremated. We briefly touched on the unsettling environmental impact of cremation, at which point I, having recently heard a science podcast on the topic, brought up the idea of human compost, and with that, we were off to the races, unfortunately for the people behind me in line who were listening to this grim topic of What To Do With Our Bodies When We Die. We both agreed that we believe souls can live on, and maybe we’d both return as birds to visit the flora that our composted bodies were nourishing. I contemplated this beautiful idea as I wheeled my giant cart away and I didn’t notice my 16-pack of Kleenex had fallen off the bottom of the cart and was lying in the middle of the parking lot until another woman called my attention to it. Another opportunity for small talk and human connection, but after discussing usage of my future corpse I was not equal to it. I thanked her, picked up my Kleenex and went home.

Weekly Reading

Sweetbitter. I typically dislike books in which the protagonist is a very young mess of a woman (SEE BELOW), with vast amounts of drug use, description of the aftereffects of drug use and drinking (SO MUCH VOMIT), and bad choices in general. Typically I avoid those books but there was something really captivating about this story of a young Ohio woman who lands in NYC and starts a job as backwaiter at a very upscale restaurant. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant the scenes of stress and conflict during a shift will resonate, even if the restaurant in question was Moxie’s in the 90s, and not an expensive NYC place in 2006. Nothing really happens, and yet everything happens. It’s a compelling read.

Really Good, Actually. SPEAKING OF HOT MESS YOUNG PROTAGONISTS. I have to say, this book was quite a ride. At first, I found it absolutely delightful and so very clever – lots of smart pop culture and literary references, like the “soft animal of her body loving what it loves” while she ate hamburgers, for example. Then, midway through I thought “wait, is this the whole book?” Then the delight really took a turn into “wow, if this woman was in my life I’d never speak to her again.” As an example, there is a scene in which her dear friend and her fiance have decided to adopt a dog, and instead of being happy for this turn of events, she says “We all know a puppy is just a down payment on a dog funeral” which, hey hot mess protagonist, just go fuck yourself. I found myself warming to the her a bit near the end as she tries to redeem her sorry self, but in a cool, detached, “If I saw her in the grocery store I’d maybe have a polite conversation about seasonal vegetables” way. It’s yet another book about a hot mess of a young woman going through a divorce, is broke, and her thesis as yet unwritten. It’s very readable, but kind of like Train Wreck Readable, and tl:dr; I am probably, yet again, too old for these books. But fun fact: the author was one of the Schitt’s Creek writers!

Happy November, everyone! How are you doing? It rained here for a few days and I cannot even express how novel that is to me. Rain? In November? It’s not snowing? Well, as they say, it’s hard to hold a candle in the cold Gnomevember rain. xo

Still Spooky Season

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Harry: Look, when the shit comes down, I’m going to be ready for it. That’s all I’m saying!

Sally: Well, in the meantime you’re going to ruin the rest of your life thinking about it.

Sally and Harry were discussing death, but I think these viewpoints can be utilized more generally, or, at the very least, to refer in a symbolic way to little, everyday, non-fatal deaths. As a casual example, let’s say you’re planning a move from the place you’ve lived your whole life, from a neighbourhood where literally everybody knows your name, from the very house in which you were new bride, a new mother, and then raised your children to adulthood, to live at the end of the road in an agricultural part of a new city, next door to your mother-in-law. LET’S JUST IMAGINE SUCH A FICTIONAL SCENARIO. One might consider that to be the death of a certain kind of life; sure, it’s followed by the birth of a new kind of life, but it is a death nonetheless.

Typically I am a Sally-type person; in fact, if I was to describe my personality using only fictional on-screen characters, I would say I am a Sally Albright mixed with a healthy dose each of Monica Geller and Buddy the Elf. And typically I am a person who really does try not to worry overly about future events; I became extremely adept at this during the pandemic, when I basically turned into someone from a twelve-step program, taking things very much One Day At A Time. I firmly believe that worrying does not prepare a person for future events, instead it saps energy and strength for when those events come to pass.

And yet, during the past year I have had many Harry moments. I have had many, many moments of worry or concern or grief for events-that-have-not-yet-happened-but-will-happen. Halloween 2023 was one of those events that I was thinking about, during Spooky Season 2022. This time last year, I had a few verklempt moments, looking at our front yard, thinking next year our house won’t be a Halloween destination for neighbourhood children. Next year we won’t have any Trick-or-Treaters. Next year I will not be able to identify as the Fancy Lady Who Gives Out Full Sized Chocolate Bars In Her Spooky House. I had to swallow hard a few times, making Special Bags for the Special Children On Our Street who I knew would be coming, including cans of pop because why not give children caffeinated beverages to go with their full-sized chocolate bars and fun-sized Swedish Fish. I was mourning the death of myself as that Fancy Lady.

Life, as we all know, can be what we make of it. I’m as happy as can be here in my new home – maybe even a little bit happier as my old home had a snowfall warning last week and the grocery store parking lots are now entering, as my friend Janet calls it, 4×4 Cart Season (HI JANET) – and Halloween IS different, but different does not mean worse.

We have exactly two children on our road, and their mother told me that she definitely would be bringing them by to Trick or Treat, presumably on their way to a neighbourhood with higher population density. I sprang into action and purchased a box of full-sized chocolate bars, along with a four-pack of Hubba Bubba and two giant Kinder surprises shaped like monsters.

You know there’s only TWO of them, right? my husband asked me suspiciously. Of course I know, but my Fancy Lady Energy must be channeled somewhere, and that somewhere is going to the two neighbour children. We can still be a neighbourhood destination! It’s just that the neighbourhood is much, much smaller.

Longtime readers may remember our old neighbour Chad, who for years competed with my husband for Best Lawn Decorations; my husband famously declared himself the winner by making a sign out of caution tape that said “Chad I Win.” When we moved we passed most of the decorations on to Chad, including but not limited to the twenty-foot Grim Reapers and the giant ghosts and skeletons; it cheers me to no end to know that our old street is a Halloween Destination and that finally, Chad is the winner. My husband did keep a few things but in my Moving Angst I felt it was a useless waste of packing boxes; wasn’t I wrong though?

He and my son hung several undead and one creepy clown in the overhead vines and the carport, all of which have failed to faze Rex in the least.

We also have this cheerful guy who is apparently going to climb onto our roof and haunt us.

Living on a vineyard and walking the dog on a gorgeous greenway next to a creek filled with ducks and geese have obvious advantages, but there is one huge disadvantage that I did not properly account for, and that is that Rex is really filthy, all the time. If it was Barkley, with his brown fur, I probably would have never noticed, but Rex’s white paws really show it. One rainy morning last week he played happily with an energetic collie in the mulched, muddy area of the offleash park, and his paws matched the rest of his coat. Happily, I was able to get him in to the groomer on Friday, which was perfect as we had Halloween festivities and he was my accessory, or, Rexcessory, if you will.

Bring me all the puppies! Or at least, one large galoompa of a puppy.

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week: I started but just could not get into Dinner For One: How Cooking In Paris Saved Me. It sounded SO good, but I found it incredibly boring and by page 44 I aborted mission. I just had too many other good books in the pile!

Truth and Beauty. This is a memoir by the incredibly talented Ann Patchett, and it’s an intense one. It follows her friendship with poet Lucy Grealy, who survived a Ewing’s sarcoma at age nine, which left her with a jaw deformity and a lifetime of corrective surgeries. The memoir shows a close friendship starting when the women were up-and-coming writers, and this was the most interesting to me of all. It shows Patchett as the slow and steady friend, the writer who buckles down to work steadily, and Grealy as the wild, beloved genius who misses deadlines constantly, amasses debt, and is in constant physical and emotional pain. There is not a happy ending to this story. Grealy spirals downward while her friends – Patchett included – continue an upward trajectory and try to help her on the way. I will say that I don’t think I could have been as supportive a friend as Patchett was, if faced by the desperate cavernous neediness that Grealy displayed. 

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett. Are you in the mood for a heartwarming story of intergenerational friendship, family by choice, and a seemingly hardened old woman whose heart becomes soft and open? Of course you are! Who doesn’t need a light and uplifting book of goodness? This is a very sweet book about an elderly woman who has HAD ENOUGH of life. She lives alone, she’s 85, and she’s decided she wants to die on her own terms, so she applies for assisted death in Switzerland. Meanwhile – cue the music – a new family moves next door and the ten year old girl corkscrews her way into her life. This is just a really lovely book that switches between current time and flashbacks to her earlier life, showing how we all make choices and take paths that get us to where we are. Listen, this isn’t going to set the literary world on fire, and there are no surprises here, but it’s just a nice heartwarming book for a chilly day in fall.

Happy Halloween to everyone! Are you celebrating? I hope there are at least fun-sized chocolates involved for you this week. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Oooh, It’s October Edition

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At the risk of sounding like an incredibly demented Little Miss Sunshine, I do not have a Least Favourite Month. I don’t have a Most Favourite Month either; I love April because it’s my birthday, and December because of Christmas, I love July and August because of the heat and summery vibes and I love September because it’s my younger son’s birthday and, together with January, there are those fun Fresh Start Feelings. I love May and June because of gardening, and March because it’s my older son’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. Even the less-popular months like November and February I love; the latter because I like to celebrate Galentines’, Valentines’, and eating half-price chocolate, and the former because of Tiny Secret Festive Season. October, of course, is a great month for Halloween and all the festivity that comes with that, including, but not limited to, fun sized candy.

But in my mind, due to a lifetime lived in Calgary, October is the beginning of winter. The leaves were always blown off the trees, meaning that the trees would be naked until May. It would always snow. The constant wind meant that wearing lip gloss and having my hair down at the same time was hazardous. My whole life I have always secretly wondered at those people who are strongly Fall People; it always seemed aspirational to me, while I dug out my winter coat and boots, to be walking around in October in only a sweater and scarf, with leaves still on the trees, eating fresh apples and looking at pumpkin displays that hadn’t been frozen and thawed so many times that they turned into mush.

But wow! Do I ever love fall here! October is gorgeous; even on the rainy and cool days, it’s beautiful. I’m turning into a Fall Person! And so of course it’s time for…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Oooh, It’s October Edition

If You Leave Me Now

Now, of course I greatly enjoyed the fall colours when I lived in Calgary, of course I did. Every year for approximately two to three weeks, I would walk around like the aforementioned demented Little Miss Sunshine and photograph the changing trees against the blue sky backdrop. Then there would be a hard frost and an enormous windstorm and the trees would be mere sticks against that blue sky backdrop. And then it would snow.

You guys, not only are the leaves in full, glorious colour right now but they have been for over a month AND there are some trees on which the leaves are STILL GREEN. What is this magic? It is so gorgeous, I can’t even. I CAN’T EVEN. I have gone from demented Little Miss Sunshine to possibly scaring fellow walkers with my enthusiasm for fall foliage. The vineyard is golden, trees are all green, yellow, orange, and red, RED, you guys. I can’t get over it. I actually phoned my husband the other day, while driving, to shriek about the alternating colours of the trees near the library. I would have taken a picture but you know, I was driving.

The Book Of Love

Speaking of the library, after my rough start I am getting really comfortable with my local branch. I still have my CPL account for ebooks, but I am finding the selection here for paper books is quite good. I went in the other day to pick up a hold, and ended up cleaning out almost their entire shelf of “Staff Picks.” As I went to the counter with my arms stacked, I mentioned somewhat sheepishly and guiltily that I had done so, and the librarian checking me out cheerfully said That’s what they are there for! We will just put in new ones!

Also, the loan period is four weeks, which seems gloriously generous and justifies my giant, greedy piles.

People Of The World, Spice Up Your Life

If you are not following my friend Suzanne’s blog (HI SUZANNE) you are sadly missing out: not only is she an incredibly gifted writer who is an absolute delight to read, but she also frequently posts recipes and dinner ideas. Last fall she posted the Perfect Fall Cookie and my goodness, friends, you need this cookie in your life.

This particular one was more chocolate chip than cookie, which should be Cookie Goals.

Now, because I’m me, I made a few changes: I added vanilla and omitted the cloves, and I did not want eight giant cookies, I wanted many, smaller cookies, and so I just adjusted the baking time accordingly. They were perfection, all the beauty of fall in cookie form.

Kale-ing Me Softly

Back in the spring, my sister-in-law thought I would be sad, moving to Kelowna, particularly since I would miss out on a whole year of gardening, and so she planted some cherry tomatoes and kale for me in my mother-in-law’s garden. You may remember that my mother-in-law is next door, but what I haven’t mentioned is that the garden will be mostly my responsibility next year. I have BIG PLANS, including raised beds for all the veggies, but in the meantime, I had these lovely cherry tomatoes and kale that were just for me.

The kale is STILL GOING STRONG. I have had so many cuttings of it this year, and it’s still going! We’ve been enjoying giant salads every Sunday dinner since we arrived here, and it’s been so prolific that my husband MAY have hinted that he’s tiring somewhat of kale. Well, too bad for him, because we still have some in the garden! Plus, my favourite farm market still has them in giant bunches 2/$5, so get ready for more Vitamin K!

That sounds like a joke, but kale really is high in Vitamin K. Moving on!

Snack-ual Healing

Let’s stay with the topic of food for a while; I have two items that I am obsessed with. Now, the first one I am a little shy to tell you about, as I JUST wrote about the madness of diet culture and my belief that we CANNOT assign some kind of morality to food choices, we just can’t. It’s absolutely wrong and destructive and I WILL NOT DO IT.

But OMG, this popcorn. Look, I know. I know the name is stupid and goes against every single thing I just said, but this popcorn is SO good. Could I pop my own corn and toss it in a coconut oil and nutritional yeast concoction to make something similar, precluding me from financially supporting a snack food company called Lesser Evil? I sure could. Will I? NO, because this is so delicious and also I make every single thing from scratch around here, just let me have this. Let me just have something easy.

I picked this up at Costco on a whim; I was hungry, and also I was stuck in a cart traffic jam, waiting for a dozen people to get their free sample of crackers and file out of the aisle so I could move on with my life. I saw this and was intrigued, and let me tell you, it is every bit as amazing as I could have ever hoped. It’s spicy and sweet, and tart and sour all at the same time. It’s like an incredible chewy candy, but it’s fruit. It is so good and I plan on grabbing several bags the next time I spot this. Of course, this is Costco we are talking about, and so who knows if I will ever see it again.

Smooth Operator

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you will know that I have been a Neutrogena devotee for years, decades even. You will also know that any skin care or beauty product must be used by me for a minimum of three months, and must show some kind of benefit, for it to be featured in my Favourites. Well! Let me tell you about this:

I started using Neutrogena Retinol Plus about six months ago, both the eye cream and the regenerating night cream. I was initially attracted to it because it comes with a warning label: NOT FOR BEGINNERS. This cracks me up so much, but it also indicates that it involves some pretty potent retinol. Well, this is not my first retinol rodeo, people, I’ve been riding that retinol bull for some time now.

Does it work, you may be asking, and the answer is I think so? But it’s impossible to tell, really, because time keeps marching forward and I do not live in the multiverse, people, and so there’s no Nicole Without Retinol to compare to. But I do think that my makeup-free face is less haggard-looking than it was when I started; then again, when I started I was in the midst of preparing for a move and an empty nest and my husband’s retirement, and was having a nervous breakdown every other day, so who can say what the cream is doing. It could be working OR I could just not be under an unbelievable amount of stress, who knows. What I know for sure is that my forehead lines are a permanent fixture and nothing short of surgery or massive filler injections is going to change that, so que sera sera.

Welcome To Her Dollhouse

Do you need a little pick-me-up? Of course you do! Well, let me tell you about my lovely friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE). She is an artist and a crafter and she has been working on a dollhouse for a while now, and let me tell you, it is the MOST incredibly adorable thing you have ever seen. Like, I have actual fantasies of shrinking myself down to live in that dollhouse. Every single new addition is better than the last, and I honestly feel like I might spin off the planet whenever I look at it, it is SO cute. I go and look at her photos at least once a week, when I need cheering or when I just want to see how the doll-half lives. THERE ARE GNOMES, PEOPLE. I find when I’m looking at it I am barely coherent because LITTLE TINY ROLLING PIN AHHHHHH.

OOTM

Look at me, swanning around with no coat, just a jaunty sweater and blanket scarf! This is Peak Fall Fashion Goals for me.

Rex wants you to see his white tuft, which matches my outfit.

These pants, boots, and top have all been discussed at length before, I am sure, but what I want to talk about is this cream poncho-like sweater. I bought it from lululemon at least ten years ago, and while I love it, I don’t wear it often. Mostly, because it’s cream and I almost always immediately spill something on myself whenever I don light-coloured clothing. But there is a funny story attached to this sweater, and that is that I was wearing it at the playground, underneath my winter coat, while waiting for the kids to finish sledding after school one day. My friend Helena (HI HELENA) came up to me and pulled me aside to tell me that she thought I should know I had toilet paper hanging down in the back.

Now, first of all, god bless everyone who tells people things like this, whether it’s a toilet paper mishap, lipstick on the teeth, chocolate on the face, or skirts tucked into pantyhose. These people are doing the lord’s work. But the thing was, I did NOT have toilet paper stuck in my waistband and hanging down below my winter coat, it was just that the jaunty edges of the poncho-like sweater gave the ILLUSION of having toilet paper stuck in my waistband and hanging down below my winter coat, and I think we can all agree this is not a look anyone would aspire to.

Therefore, I swore I would never wear that sweater again underneath any outerwear, and since I lived in Calgary until three months ago, this meant that my opportunities to wear it were greatly reduced. Calgary is not a place that really encourages a person to go anywhere without a jacket. But now! Now I can wear it in all its glory, I just have to make sure I’m not going to immediately spill wine or salsa on it, which is what happened the last time I wore it. Resolve Stain Remover: also a Nicole’s Favourite Thing.

Hilariously, one of my Favourite podcasts, Nobody Panic, released an episode this week called How To Be A Basic Autumn Bitch and it spoke to me, people. It spoke to me. I hope you are enjoying October too, and if you have Favourites to share, I’d love to hear them, as always. xo

Let Me Eat Cake

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One of the things I was most excited to do when I moved here was to restart cross-country skiing; I love it but, sadly, for one reason or another, have not skied in twenty years. Now that I don’t have children in school or classes to teach, I have been eager to restart, and because ski technology has changed significantly in my prolonged off-season, not to mention that my feet have gotten bigger, my husband and I went to the local outdoor store to procure new equipment.

We were immediately helped by a nice, knowledgeable young man named Brett, who showed me some skis that he thought would be appropriate. When it came to sizing them, he measured against my height and then casually asked my weight. I replied, truthfully, that I really didn’t know. I have not weighed myself since August 2020, when I read Your Body Your Best Friend; even at the doctor’s office, I have turned around while being weighed and asked not to be told the number. Brett suggested that if I didn’t know my weight, I could just step on the scale, that one, right over there!

“Oh, I’m not stepping on a scale,” I said, and my husband laughed. “That’s a dangerous question!” he said to Brett, and what was so interesting to me is that Brett looked completely puzzled as to why a woman would hesitate weighing herself not just in public, but ever. Like, he was genuinely nonplussed. Why would weight be any different than boot size or height; this was value-neutral information used to select the appropriate ski equipment.

Honestly, it’s aspirational. I cannot imagine being in a mental place where knowing my weight didn’t cause a steep descent into utter madness, regardless of what that weight is. I cannot imagine just knowing my weight without some kind of insane moral value judgement, the way I feel about my height and the size of my feet and hands. In the end we compromised; Brett told me the weight range in kilograms for the skis I was looking at, and I was able to tell him that I thought I was within that range.

I am still a little depressed about the Weight Watchers book I read last week, friends. I don’t know if it was because I read it just before my Ladies’ Holidays when I was already in a fragile emotional state, but wow, did it ever bum me out. The idea that we are living in a society that essentially wants women – sure, men are subject to weight judgements too, but let’s face it, it’s mostly women – to take up less space and to always be hungry or, alternately and concurrently, not hungry but guilty and full of shame, just made me so sad. The thought of all these millions of women who have been weight cycling their entire lives, just futilely dieting and gaining and back again, and then made to feel shame about it, made me feel like wrapping up every one of them in a hug.

The author herself, and most likely, millions of other women, seemed to have two modes when it comes to food: restriction and the accompanying obsession with food (did we learn nothing from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment?), or shame about eating and the accompanying obsession with food. Restriction and shame, those seem to be the options. There was no joy whatsoever.

I learned something unsettling this week, and it has to do with Ozempic. I know there is a lot of discourse around this drug, and I am not going to touch on that. What I am going to tell you is something that I did not know, and that is that while Ozempic has been used very effectively for fairly significant weight loss, once a person stops the drug the weight is regained. The only way, apparently, to maintain the weight loss from Ozempic use is by continuing usage of Ozempic, indefinitely. The thought of people staying on a drug that is probably not tested for extreme long-term usage – how could it be, when it’s relatively new? – for the rest of their lives just to maintain an arbitrary Ideal Weight has me upset on a macro level. What are we doing in our society?

Once you open your eyes to the insidiousness of diet culture, you can’t not see it everywhere. Conversations about skipping dessert to be Good happen everywhere, or thoughts like I want to eat a lot at this event so I won’t eat all day to prepare abound, women everywhere are thinking I ate those cookies yesterday so today I’ll skip lunch. Whole swaths of food are demonized as Bad, every time you turn around it’s something different: oils, sugar, carbs, whatever some so-called expert has decided to pick on. Food is fuel, of course it is, but it is so much more than that. Food needs to nourish our bodies AND our souls; it is nutrition and it is community, it is family and it is joy, it is culture and tradition. When we reject these things, we are rejecting little parts of ourselves. Of course we need to make choices that are best for our bodies, of course we do, but our physical bodies are only one part of us.

What upset me the most from that Weight Watchers book was somewhat of a throwaway line, and that is that Jean Nidetch said that being thin needs to be more important than any food, and suggested this life hack: on your birthday, every birthday, for the rest of your life, bake a cake, cut the cake, serve the cake, but DO NOT EAT THE CAKE. Now, I probably would not have noticed this line at all if she talked about pie, which I loathe, or even something I feel neutral about, like doughnuts. I don’t dislike doughnuts but I never feel like eating one, and so if someone told me that there would be no more doughnuts or pie for the rest of my life, I’d never blink an eye. Done and done! But cake! We all know how I feel about cake. The thought of slicing a cake and not eating any on my own birthday, ever again, is the saddest food-related thing I can think about.

Maybe it’s because I’m 48 and although I hope I have a little more life ahead of me than behind me, likely that is not the case, but I just refuse to spend even one more minute like this. I refuse to think that if I have that, then I shouldn’t have this. The fact is that I genuinely do not think about my weight at all anymore, unless I’m in a ski shop and they ask for it, but it’s taken work to get here.

On the subject of cake, it was my husband’s birthday, and so we spent the weekend feting my Shmoopy. Obviously there needed to be cake involved, and for this special occasion, we went with carrot. It was delicious.

Weekly Reading

Falling. Let’s say you’re on a plane. The pilot discovers, after takeoff, that his family is being held hostage and he is given one of two choices: crash the plane, killing everyone on board, or his family dies. What’s he going to do? This is an entertaining thriller of a book, although probably not recommended for anyone who, you know, has a fear of flying. I don’t, so it didn’t bother me BUT I could not stop thinking about the author. The author, get this, is a former flight attendant who WROTE THIS BOOK WHILE WORKING THE RED-EYE. That’s right, as the passengers slept on overnight flights, she wrote a book about terrorists threatening every person on board and the pilot’s beloved family. What kind of a warped and twisted mind does that? I don’t know but I’d love to be her friend. Imagine getting your little bag of pretzels or Celebration cookie from a seemingly-innocent flight attendant who is imagining your death. Actually, given how some people behave on planes, this is kind of a reasonable response. Thanks to Stephany (HI STEPHANY) for the recommendation (listen to her podcast, The Friendship Paradox!).

Daughter in Exile. I think this is an incredibly honest and accurate book about what it is to be an illegal immigrant in the US; this story follows a young, educated Ghanaian woman who gives up her job at the Thai embassy in Senegal to go to America with her boyfriend, who turns out to be a cad, uninterested in her when he discovers she doesn’t have wealth. Stranded in America, pregnant, she struggles just to survive, the people around her in equal measures helping her and also taking advantage of and hurting her. I’m sure this is very realistic, with one awful thing after another happening to her, but it is very hard to read. I guess it is just a slice of life. I can’t say I enjoyed it; I did not like the writing style and I found the dialogue to be pretty stilted and unnatural. I think, however, it was a very eye-opening novel to the immigrant experience. 

The Woman in the Library. This was SUCH a fun and entertaining read! It’s a murder mystery with clever parallel story lines – a mystery being written, and a beta reader reading that mystery. Very fun indeed!

We took advantage of a beautiful weekend, and having my son home for my husband’s birthday, to take our annual family photos. Would you like to be included on my holiday card list? All you have to do is include ME on yours! At the risk of sounding like a Christmas Asshole, I am only interested in card EXCHANGES, so if you too love sending out holiday cards, and want one from me, let me know! If you sent me a card last year you are already on the list, never fear. In any case, have a lovely week, everyone; hopefully there will be cake or something delicious involved. xo

Just Me Or Everyone

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In beginning of The Blind Assassin, my favourite book of all time, there is a scene where octogenarian Iris is presenting an award at the local high school, watching the graduates file on stage.

Up they trooped, solemn and radiant, in many sizes, all beautiful as only the young can be beautiful. Even the ugly ones were beautiful…None of them understands this – how beautiful they are.

I first read this book when it came out, in 2000, when I was only 25, and this scene resonated with me even then. I think about it all the time, particularly at this time of my life, particularly when I see groups of girls walking together, going home from school or hanging out at the mall. I always think they don’t understand how beautiful they are.

Because, let’s face it, they don’t. I mean, I didn’t! And I am not going to write about the perceived negative effects of aging and perimenopause on my face and body – that’s IMPLIED, my goodness – because the truth is that I feel so much more confident in my appearance now, at 48, than I did 30 years ago. I would rather FEEL beautiful, the way I do, than BE actually youthfully beautiful, with all the insecurity around my appearance that I had when I was youthfully beautiful.

Now, let us be clear, I’m not blind. I feel beautiful but I know how mirrors work. I realize that my neck looks like a striated tree trunk when I smile a certain way – but that certain way is when I’m really happy and excited. I realize that my forehead is lined from a lifetime of speaking expressively with my whole face and that I have lines around my eyes and mouth from laughing and smiling, but I think those are a pretty decent price to pay for visual reminders of joy and happiness. I realize that my breasts resemble semi-deflated water balloons and require feats of engineering in the bra department, and that my waistline isn’t quite so defined anymore, but I HAVE breasts, which I do not take for granted, having so many friends go through cancer treatments, and if my pants are a little tight at the waist, well, it’s a sign of enjoying my life and also that, perhaps, my incredibly frequent Ladies’ Holidays might be nearing the end. I rejoiced at the expansion of my waist during pregnancy, and while I am not rejoicing, I refuse to be upset with the expansion of my waist during perimenopause. It’s just a new stage of life, and also, elastic waistbands exist.

Listeners of Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend will be very familiar with the segment “Just Me Or Everyone?” where guests will talk about something that they do or think, and wonder if it is something only they experience or if everyone else is experiencing the same thing. I love this segment. I, too, feel sadness and concern when I see a little boutique or restaurant that is empty! I, too, feel guilt when dusting up a spider web, thinking I destroyed the hard work of an industrious little arachnid who is trapping pesky bugs for my benefit!

When I see groups of young girls, and I think of that quote from The Blind Assassin, I want to actually go up to them and interrupt their conversations about whatever young girls discuss to tell them how beautiful they all are. I mean, I have to remind myself that this would be a creepy and strange thing to do. Imagine! Imagine how weird that would be! But I see teen girls, and I know – I KNOW – that they are filled with that special kind of female self-loathing perpetuated by our patriarchal society that makes girls and women think that their worth lies completely in their physical appearance, I know that they are all dissatisfied with their faces or their hair or their bodies or all of the above, and I want to pull over my car, jump out, and tell them to their beautiful, youthful faces how gorgeous they are. Probably they wouldn’t believe me anyway. Probably they would just live with their loathing until several decades go by and they look at photos of their younger selves with wonder. Is it just me, or does everyone want to do this too?

Speaking of the youth, is it just me or does everyone get confused when people change their names on Instagram? This seems to happen quite frequently, and it always throws me off. Who is that? I’ll think as something shows up on my feed. Where did they come from, why am I following them? Finally I’ll realize that my friend’s daughter simply changed her handle for the fifth time, or that random follower from my YMC days got divorced, or that I’m not even following that person at all, they are simply “suggested for me.”

Despite occasional confusion, I do love Instagram. Mostly because I am nosy and I love little peeks into other people’s lives; I realize that what people share and the reality of their lives can be two different things and yet, I love it. I most certainly understand that no life is a highlight reel of fabulous vacations, brilliant, high-achieving children, or even good hair days; there is a side of everyone’s life that they don’t always care to show.

Later in The Blind Assassin, twenty-something Iris visits her childhood home and stands looking pensively at the portrait of her grandmother who she never knew, a portrait that had been there her whole life. With insight gained from her own life experience, Iris thinks I bet you were alleycatting around…I bet you had a secret life. I bet it kept you going.

Is it just me, or does everyone occasionally become struck with the idea that every single person we encounter has a whole side of themselves that few to no one sees; perhaps a secret life, like Iris’, but usually it is just a personal side of themselves. I remember this striking me incredibly when I was a young woman working on the trade floor for an energy company. There I was, surrounded by men in a professional atmosphere, everyone working and making decisions and, in some cases, screaming at people on the corded phones. I remember seeing all of their wedding rings glinting in the harsh overhead fluorescent lights, which, by the way, did not contribute to a feeling of positivity about my own face and appearance, see above for “self-loathing,” and I thought All these men are married. All of these men, who are currently swearing at their screens, presumably bought rings and nervously paced while preparing to propose, all of these men have a secret life that I know nothing about. And on the flip side, their spouses probably had no idea what their work life was like, probably they did not know the gritty details of their days and had no idea, while sitting across from them at the dinner table, that they spent many hours of the day tersely shouting at their brokers and were possibly being recommended by HR to take anger management courses.

People contain multitudes, is what I’m saying, and sometimes I feel something nearing awe at the idea. Every person has a multifaceted story and a secret side of life.

When I was visiting my parents last week, my mom and I went to my friend Merry’s Mercantile – if you are in Central Alberta, you MUST go – and when I saw that card in her display, I laughed until my stomach hurt and immediately purchased several. I am loathe to imagine anyone at all doing the deed, but there is something particularly unsettling and disturbing about one’s parents taking a trip to pound town. I’m sure my own children share this sense of horror and have mentally blocked out any such idea. Secret sides of life, we all have them.

Weekly Reading

The Librarian Of Burned Books. This book of historical fiction brings attention to the Armed Services Editions, books sent to soldiers in WWII, alongside book burning in Germany in 1933, and banned and censored books through the war. It also looks at the treatment of the LGBTQ community in Nazi Germany and what it means to be a bystander, and it felt like all these subjects, sadly, still have relevance today. It’s interesting and culturally relevant but I will say that unfortunately I found this book to be more of a “Tell” instead of a “Show.” That aside it’s still a pretty decent read, with different and connected characters.

This Is Big: How The Founder of Weight Watchers Changed The World (and me). Woof. This was one of the most depressing books I have ever read. Talk about self-loathing brought on by our culture of shame, judgement, and obsession. The book itself is well-written and is designed in a really unique way: the biographical chapters about Jean Nidetch, founder of Weight Watchers, are alternated with memoir chapters, where the author details her year of joining Weight Watchers and her life of weight cycling and, frankly, self-hatred. It is kind of hard to read: the author was put on her first diet before she was five years old, and her parents basically body-shamed her for her entire life (“you don’t need the bread basket.”). The author admits that she spent her entire life obsessed with food, diets, and hating her body and while I wish this was a unique experience, I feel like it isn’t. It’s an extreme case but I would say that every woman in this world has spent a great deal of time in the same way, and it is shitty. It is SHITTY. It is sad and depressing and terrible. The parts about Nidetch are fascinating and also very depressing. She built an empire, but after the sale of Weight Watchers to Heinz, she was no longer president, and kind of floundered, gambling and shopping and basically trading food for other obsessions. She ended up dying alone, with less than a million in the bank, and given she made a LOT of money, this is really saying something. I finished this book and just stared into space for a while.

Well. On that note, let’s pivot a little and look forward to the week ahead. We have a birthday to celebrate, I have some fun things planned, and the weather promises to be gorgeous. I hope you have a gorgeous week as well. xo

Gratitude and Grievance

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Yesterday my husband and I took a ten hour road trip to visit my parents. It was a gorgeous drive but I am a tiny bit tired; not, however, as tired as I was Saturday morning when I was woken up several times by a pack of howling coyotes in the vineyard. They even woke my very hard-of-hearing mother-in-law up, so you can imagine how loud that must have been.

What I’m saying is I’m not feeling particularly rested this holiday weekend, but it was such a beautiful drive and, of course, it was lovely to drive into my parents’ very welcoming home. This is what I’m looking at right this minute:

I meditate every day, as part of my self-care REM Y REM; most days the meditation is part of my yoga practice and savasana, but once or twice a week I listen to a guided meditation. A few weeks ago I listened to one that had a gratitude theme, and one of the lines in that meditation was What you focus on is what you see more of. I mean, yes, obviously. But also YES!

Let’s say, for example, that you wake up one morning and perceive, on looking in the mirror, that for the first time in a very long time, possibly years, a pimple has inexplicably developed underneath your left eye. Perhaps, instead of feeling gratitude for the exuberance of youth that has suddenly revisited your face in such a way, you unhappily focus all your vision on this little red protuberance. In fact, you focus on it so much that, upon viewing your reflection, you cannot see anything else. You might as well have no other facial features; your face has become Only The Pimple.

At the same time, you might notice that it has been three weeks since you last coloured your hair, and so the hair framing your Only The Pimple visage is white with grey accents, contrasting sharply with the rest of your kind-of-orange-fading-red hair. Instead of feeling deep gratitude for this interesting confluence of Youth and Old Age that is your current reflection, you feel simultaneously grieved for your loss of youth and also for this strange resurgence of youth. Instead of thinking that your body, indeed, is a Wonderland, you are laser focused on what you perceive as flaws, which are really not flaws at all but just glorious markers of the human experience.

What you focus on is what you see more of, and if you step back and soften the focus on the things that you are unhappy with, and maybe take a selfie with the knowledge that car lighting is the very best kind of lighting, maybe you can focus a bit more on gratitude than on grievances.

I’m sure that’s what the guided meditation meant.

So many of my friends have Gratitude Journals, and I deeply admire that, although I do not have one myself. My friend Ally (HI ALLY) recently brought my attention to something called a Grievance Journal. I had never heard of such a thing before but indeed, there are many such items for sale; the price of such things might surprise you, for example, this grievance journal is $208. Ally correctly pointed out that one could simply purchase a simple spiral notebook that would serve the purpose, but we are often more inspired by thematic stationary, aren’t we?

My thought on this is that anyone who had a diary with a lock and key in their youth was most likely keeping a Grievance Journal. I shudder to think of my own teen angst committed to the pages of my locked diaries, but on the other hand, maybe I was a trend-setter without even knowing it! I was Grievance Journaling before Grievance Journaling was cool.

Then again, what is a blog but a repository for grievances – and gratitude, of course. And because it is Thanksgiving, I will share with you, my dear readers, something that I am very grateful for. One year ago tomorrow Rex came to live with us!

I like to call this our Rexaversary, although I’m sure my husband would like me to note that he hates that term, and no one really knows why. Perhaps it reminds him of Brexit? Or the ridiculously stupid Wexit? As a side note, a couple of years ago we were at the dinner table and my older son said, out of absolutely nowhere, “Remember that thing, Wexit?” and for no reason at all we all became hysterical with laughter. WEXIT.

Anyway, it is one year tomorrow that we received such an incredible gift. He was much loved by his former family, and I still can’t believe my luck that we were the ones chosen to care for our Big Silly, our Notorious D.O.G., our Doughnut, our Puppy Pup, our Rexie. He’s brought so much joy to us every single day; it’s ironic that I was the person who, after Barkley died, was so devastated that I refused to even consider bringing another dog into our family, and now I have a shadow, every waking minute.

My view upon getting out of the shower.

I did feel, a year ago, like Clifford the Big Red Dog was coming to live with us, but after a year of Rex, he just seems like a normal-sized dog, and all other dogs are miniature. Anyway, it’s appropriate that this celebration day coincides (ISH) with Thanksgiving as we are all so thankful to have his Big Silly Energy in our home.

Weekly Reading

The Magician’s Assistant. I really enjoyed this book about Sabine, a magician’s assistant who was married to the magician. When he dies, she discovers everything about his past that he had kept hidden. What’s not to like? Complicated families, interesting female protagonist, beautiful prose. It checks all my boxes! The thing about Ann Patchett is while many of her books follow a similar theme of brokenness and family secrets, they are all so different and unique. Content warning for mentions of domestic and child abuse.

The Perfect Marriage. Did you ever read the Sweet Valley High books? Remember how the physical descriptions were “All American good looks, with blond hair and blue eyes, size six?” That was what this book was like, a grown up SVH, but a “thriller.” The physical descriptions of the characters were so over-the-top: he is a hunky six-foot-two man with broad shoulders, she is a tiny blonde with never a hair out of place, wearing her Louboutin heels and pencil skirts. Basically, a man is accused of murdering his mistress and his wife is his lawyer for the trial. Is this well-written? No. Are the characters interesting and nuanced? No. Is the dialogue natural and believable? No. Is the plot in any way realistic? Absolutely not. Is this book hilariously entertaining in its ridiculousness? Kind of! It’s pretty ridiculous but hey, it’s a fast read and won’t require any heavy thinking or reflection.

I hope you are all enjoying this holiday weekend, or, for my non-Canadian friends, this Monday in October! I am grateful for all of you. xo

Hairum Scarum

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The thing about moving is that, once a person has moved, there is still so much paperwork to deal with, there are still so many decisions to make, and there is so very much to learn about the new environment. Moving across provinces, I am discovering, means that much time must be spent in a variety of government and other official offices and on their websites, just getting the basics figured out. In the past three weeks, for example, we have spent countless tedious hours just getting all of our driver’s licenses switched, organizing registrations, plates, and insurance for all five vehicles plus the RV, why do we have so many vehicles, why do we have an RV, and switching our health care from Alberta to BC.

It’s quite exhausting and every day I think of something new to add to the running list: I need to get Rex licensed, for example, and I need to find him a vet, having already found him a good groomer and boarder. I don’t think it will be hard to do these things, but all takes time.

Other things I do not have figured out: medical and dental care. I’m not at all worried about finding a dentist, they are everywhere and all seem to be accepting new patients, but there is a massive physician shortage so I feel like I’ll be lucky to get one before I turn 65. Just don’t get sick, I guess. There are plenty of walk-in clinics, if I do get sick, and on the plus side, a friend told me that a doctor referral is not necessary for a mammogram, unlike in Alberta; apparently, I can just simply book one. But then, that’s one more thing added on my massive to-do list, and my dense, lumpy breasts and I are due for one in October. Guess what! It IS October!

Before my husband retired, I used up all his optical benefits to get my eyes examined and new reading glasses. This is something I have been putting off for years, for no good reason. Can I blame it on the pandemic? In any case, finding an optometrist was easy – I looked for the closest one with the highest Yelp rating – and due to the time of year, they were having a back to school sale. I ended up with Dolce and Gabbana reading glasses, and with the sale and the optical coverage, they were very low cost.

I feel fancy!

Speaking of my husband’s retirement, at his party I was chatting with a woman who will be relocating in the next six months or so, to one of four locations, as yet undetermined, but the move will either be cross-country or out of country. She was, naturally, quite anxious about all the logistics involved in such a move and said to me plaintively I just don’t know how I am going to find someone to cut my hair. Girl, I know. I KNOW! I related so much because of all the myriad things I had to deal with upon arrival, finding someone I could trust with my delicate locks was top of the list.

It’s just such an intimate relationship, isn’t it, the one between hair stylist and hair stylee. There is so much trust involved, and then there are personalities that need to be able to mesh, not to mention actual hair styling talent. When I find a stylist I like, I hold onto them like grim death. I very briefly considered going back to Calgary every three or four months to get my hair cut, but that seemed ridiculous even for me, and the logistics involved were stupid.

So began my search for a stylist.

The first part of my search began, interestingly enough, back in July, when I was very new to town. I made a sugaring appointment at a local place; there are a couple of sugaring salons in town and I chose this one purely because their online booking process was easy and one I was familiar with. The first body sugaring place I tried had an incredibly difficult booking process which required the download of an app, and then it was tricky to find the actual place on the app itself, and I ended up deleting it all in frustration and going with the other, slightly less conveniently located option. It probably says something untoward about my character that while I am distressed at the thought of someone new taking scissors to my hair, I have absolutely no problem exposing my unclothed fuzzy vulva to a complete stranger, speaking sugaring code like can we also do the back, and that my choice of person for this service is made merely by their location and ease of booking process.

In any case, in late July I found myself half-naked with a lovely young woman named Kate, chatting about being brand new to town, the stress of moving, and how it was bathing suit season and what kind of cut did I wear? Kate herself had moved here from a small coastal town, and referred to Kelowna as the hustle and bustle of the big city, which made me smile, as I had the opposite experience. When we were finished, she kindly asked if there was any way to help me feel settled, if there was any information she could share with me. I told her that I was looking for a hair stylist, did she have any friends who she could recommend?

She did, saying cheerily to my express concern about needing a stylist who was well-versed in aging, thinning, brittle hair, that, in addition to servicing all her friends, Abi cuts my mom’s hair! Well. I could certainly be Kate’s mom’s age, but the image I had immediately was a no-nonsense style favoured by senior ladies everywhere, and I felt a little disheartened. However, I accepted the contact information, and was a little taken aback to see that it was a) an Instagram handle, and b) that Instagram handle was Abi Gives Good Hair.

And you guys, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pick up the phone to make an appointment with Abi, who Gives Good Hair, partially because of the Instagram handle and partly because I visualized the clientele as being two-pronged: on one hand, the cute young things getting their beachy waves, who were featured on the Instagram feed, and on the other, the moms. This was probably an unfair assessment on my part, but it’s the truth, and so the weeks passed and my ends became more and more frayed.

Finally, feeling desperate, I reached out to my lovely friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) for help. You may be wondering why I did not reach out earlier, since Sammi has been an extraordinary resource in this move, helping me feel welcome, introducing me to people, and also recommending her very excellent nail salon, which is everything I want in a nail salon. The reason is that the woman who cuts Sammi’s hair is known to be a bit brusque and gruff, and I have been feeling a little emotionally fragile, worried that I would be judged for colouring my own hair or for too much heat styling or for having crunchy, uneven ends.

And of course, this ended up being not the case. This woman was truly wonderful, giving me possibly the best haircut I have EVER had in my life, asking me very thoughtful questions about my hair and its history, and not once criticizing or judging my hair choices. I did not find her brusque but did find her extremely efficient, as I was in and out within a half hour, and the moral of the story is that sometimes a person has to take the risk to get the reward.

Weekly Reading

Probably the most exciting development, other than finally getting my hair cut, was that since I have official BC identification in the form of a driver’s license, I was able to obtain a library card! I immediately put a stack of books on hold, and, while I waited, I picked up an old favourite.

Emma. I love this book so much! I so identify with Emma, although now I’m over twice her age. This book is brilliant – romance, hilarity, class introspection…it has it all. It is maybe one of the funniest of Austen’s collection, as the side characters are absolutely hilarious and relatable; don’t we all have a gabby Miss Bates in our lives, or a ridiculous Mrs. Elton, isn’t everyone related to a Mr. Woodhouse, with his anxious hypochondria and his refusal to allow for any other point of view? Such a great book.

The Swimmers. The first of my library books was a winner, albeit an absolutely heartbreaking and incredibly moving winner. This novel is essentially a love letter from a daughter to a mother with dementia. I do not tend to be a crier when I read, but this book made me well up several times.

In other news – what could top a hair cut and a library card, you may wonder? – our dear blog friend Elisabeth is back! Check out her new site, Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist. All of this is a great way to start a fresh new month, and I wish you all a happy first week of October. xo