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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

Speaking of books I maybe should have DNF’d:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Summer Essentials Edition

Hello Hawaii

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

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

You Otter Know

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

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

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

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

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

Everything Happens For A Riesling

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

Clawing Back

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

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

Getting Off

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

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

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

Outfit of the Month

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s like bananas.

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

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

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

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

But time is the panacea for most things, as it was for this. I now have to factor in Chat Time every time I go for a walk, I have a fabulous group of friends, I am a familiar face at the grocery store, farm market, post office, winery, and library. It’s hard to remember that deflated feeling I had, now.

One thing that has been consistent since our move is my love for our house. This house is so beautiful, and after 23 years in a north-facing, 1962 bungalow, I was thrilled from day one with the sudden acquisition of all the things I didn’t have before: the abundance of natural light, cupboard, and closet space, a mudroom, a pantry, a laundry room, and an ensuite. The novelty hasn’t worn off. Every single day I am grateful for every single one of these things, not a day goes by when I don’t marvel at them.

In my Ask Me Anything – back in December! I am nothing if not prompt – my friend San (HI SAN) asked: What is your favourite room in the house? The answer is the same when asked about my favourite month: I don’t have one. They are all my favourite in their own way! They all have wonderful things to recommend them, but I thought I would talk about the rooms I spend the most time in.

Upon entering the house, it is a straight shot from the beloved mudroom to the kitchen, living room, dining room, and deck. I love that we have dinner every day overlooking our beautiful view, I love our cozy living room, I love my spacious and bright kitchen. And of course, I love our deck! It’s an extra room during the warm months, and it’s where I can be found, reading, for a good part of the day.

When it’s not warm enough to be on the deck, I like to curl up on the couch, reading. Rex generally wedges himself between the couch and the coffee table, because I just cannot be close enough.

Those gold-framed flower pictures in the background were painted and given to me by my dear friend Florence (HI FLORENCE) before I left Calgary, and I think of her every single day when I see them. Also, full disclosure, I started this post a few months ago and then it fell off the radar, which explains Rex’s fuzziness in some photos.

The pandemic was terrible for many reasons, but, as Ma Ingalls says, there is no great loss without some small gain and for me, that was my Peloton bike. I love our home gym; we had one in Calgary too, but it was much smaller, and this one has a squat rack, which I use for pull-up practice.

I write in our office, and although it tends to be a bit of a catchall for some items (I think there still is a box that really should be unpacked and dealt with), I love the space. The shelves are filled with photos and albums, the kids’ craft and woodshop projects, and my husband’s prized bowling trophy from 1978.

I don’t spend a ton of time in here, but I love that we have a guest room and that our bookshelves fit so perfectly!

Enroute to our bedroom is our wall of photographs; some are from recent travels and some were on our walls in our Calgary house. Every one of them is a great memory. In this photo you can see the doors to the boys’ rooms – so spacious! – and also their bathroom. Really, since there is only one boy living at home, it’s HIS bathroom.

Where the magic happens! Also, while I like to stretch out on the deck or curl up on the couch, my husband enjoys reading in the recliner. But what’s that on his bedside table?

Inhale Exhale! Not just for middle-aged women! My husband proclaims it is his favourite book, and god, I love that man. I love that it is positioned perfectly next to his blood pressure monitor.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of books! I am CRUSHING my goal of DNFing when a book isn’t working for me, and this week it was Villa Coco. Clearly this author is not for me as I slogged through his Less in 2017 and I abandoned ship on this one at page 40. It had so many elements that I thought I’d love: setting in Tuscany, a sassy 92-year-old female side character, and an illicit affair. Very Nicole-coded! But wow, was I bored. I realized there is a huge wait list for this at the library, so the best thing I could do was return it early.

Dear Monica Lewinsky. Who among us has not had a youthful indiscretion? I have long thought that Monica Lewinsky is the most maligned woman of my lifetime; imagine your youthful indiscretion resulted in betrayal by a close girlfriend, becoming the focus of international attention and intense ridicule, being slut-shamed and weight-shamed and all-around-shamed, being the frequent subject of sexist, rude, crass jokes on late night television and Saturday night live, not to mention national programs and publications, having your entire reputation precede you forever at the age of 25, being unable to find a job or to outrun your persona as a gross whore, and, at the end of the day, having the man with whom you had this youthful indiscretion deny the whole thing and then having to prove it by getting a DNA sample of the jizz he left on your dress? Let us all remember what we were like at 22, let us all remember the rush of power and the butterflies of adoration, and let us imagine our lives being forever changed afterward. Or maybe there is no imagining needed. This book deals with a woman facing her own youthful indiscretion and how it impacted her life forever; she calls for help from a canonized Monica Lewinsky. The book interweaves the lives of female saints with the story of the young woman’s time at an art history summer program, using the cleverest, wittiest writing I have seen in a long while. I loved this book and I am standing with my fist raised against powerful men who use young women for their own desires and then step away unscathed, while the women deal with the fallout. Also, fuck the patriarchy that makes girls and women feel their worth lies only in their ability to attract the male gaze.

Saoirse. What happens when the people who are supposed to protect children don’t? What happens when children fall through the cracks? Can a person outrun their past? These are all questions that are answered through this book, which features a very young American woman who flees to Ireland with a stolen identity. This is a very readable book with beautiful prose, and I liked but did not love it. I found some of the relationships and storylines strained credulity; for example, I cannot imagine housing a person, rent-free and indefinitely, in my home, whom my son sat next to on an airplane. I cannot imagine a relationship that would be love at first sight and then that love would endure after years of not seeing each other, but I suppose it could happen. I found the antagonists to be quite flat and one-dimensional. But these quibbles do not mean that this is not a good story containing characters who do have lavish and interesting backstories – it is. But it’s a little too neat for my personal taste.

Best Offer Wins. Speaking of dream homes, how far would you go to get yours? Probably not as far as our narrator, Margo, who becomes increasingly unhinged as entering the DC housing market becomes more and more unattainable. This is a wild ride; it’s very pacey and entertaining, and I was thoroughly engrossed in this absolutely insane effort to obtain the house of our narrator’s dreams.

Summer is just flying by, friends! I can hardly believe it. I’m heading to the beach today with some girlfriends, which feels like a very luxurious thing to do on a Monday! I hope you have a week with such little luxuries ahead of you. xo

A while ago, my husband’s friend went to see Guns and Roses in concert in Vancouver, which is at least a four hour drive from here, meaning that this was not just an evening out. It was a commitment. Concert tickets these days are not what they once were, and accommodations in Vancouver are also pricey, so I imagine it was not an inexpensive endeavour. It probably would have been worth it to this sixtysomething rocker, had the band played even one of their many, many hits. But no. Guns and Roses spent the entire concert playing all new material.

I can understand an artist wanting to share new work with the world; I am not sure I would want to continue doing the same thing over and over for four decades. I can understand that it would get tiring, as Elin Hildebrand said on her podcast about her annual Nantucket books, that people want the same thing every year, but make it different. And yet, I do feel that a band with such stature as Guns and Roses, who charges exorbitant fees and who has an extensive catalogue of excellent, much-loved music, should give the people what they want.

This is why I love cover bands. I ADORE a cover band. If we go somewhere and there is a cover band playing the hits, you can bet I am going to get that dance floor started. This past Friday my husband and I went to see The Hip Replacements, which is the very witty name of our local Tragically Hip cover band, and it was so much fun. I danced all night, got home late, and paid for it the next day with sore feet, a sore throat from singing, and general exhaustion due to my inability to sleep in no matter what time I go to bed. It was worth it!

But back to Guns and Roses. I always, always have a song stuck in my head at all times, but in the past few weeks I have had three on rotating repeat, for a variety of reasons.

Sweet Child of Mine

A few months ago I heard a piano version of Sweet Child of Mine, and I immediately purchased and downloaded the sheet music. What fun! And also, whoa nelly. Look at this key!

It’s a challenge, let’s put it that way, a challenge that is peppered with unusual C flats and tricky fingering. I’m working hard at learning all eight pages of it, the result of which is that the tune loops through my head many times a day. She’s got eyes of the bluest sky I’ll think as I roll out my yoga mat, looking at the morning breaking. Where do we go now I’ll hum as I look for something in the pantry.

Welcome To The Jungle

Sweet Child of Mine gives up its place in my brain every morning when I head down to the garden, at which time Welcome To The Jungle wedges its way in.

The tomatoes are going rogue.

My arms are completely covered in scratches from squeezing between the raspberries and the zucchinis. Wear sleeves! my husband says helpfully, forgetting that I am a perimenopausal woman working outdoors in the height of the Okanagan summer, and that wearing sleeves feels as comfortable as donning a medieval suit of armour.

You’re in the jungle, baby, you’re going to die! is something that inappropriately floats through my head as I serenely build the sand mandala that is weeding.

Patience

Those two songs have been in my head constantly, but a third popped in last week when I was at Costco. I don’t know if this is a seasonal fluctuation, but for the past few months every time I go into Costco I think it just can’t get worse than this and then, somehow, it does. Said woman, take it slow, it’ll work itself out fine, I mentally sang to myself while completely immobilized in the dry goods aisle, with unmoving carts before, beside, and behind me. All we need is just a little patience I thought, waiting for throngs of carts to move so I could exit the freezer aisle.

I congratulated myself on making it out without internal impotent rage, and then I saw this beside my car.

It takes so much more effort to wedge a cart’s front wheels up onto the median without destroying the vehicles around it, particularly since the carrel was mere steps away.

I wasn’t as bothered as I usually would be, because I was still pondering a very kind, but odd, compliment I had received at the pharmacy. The young fellow – I would place him in his late twenties – talked to me about my prescription and then said Oh, by the way, I love your hair! I responded with a grateful and enthusiastic thanks, to which he followed up with It’s so old-timey! Like a 1940s movie star.

Listen, I will take any compliment, no matter how strange. And I’ve always thought it would be wonderful to swan through life in soft focus like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. Old-timey isn’t exactly a compliment I expected, but I will take what I can get, and just hope he didn’t mean Joan Crawford or Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane.

Weekly Reading

The book flood continues!

Luckily, I have had a lot of uninterrupted reading time this week; after the guys got back from Vancouver, my husband went camping with some buddies for a few days, and I camped out on the deck for hours every day with my trusty reading partner.

Laundry Love. I put this on my TBR five years ago – and then promptly forgot about it. It wasn’t until my friend Stephany (HI STEPHANY) mentioned this that I metaphorically slapped my forehead and took it from TBR to my library pile. And I know what you’re thinking: an entire book about LAUNDRY? Yes. Not only is it a delightful, joyful meditation on caring for our clothes, each other, and the planet, but it also contains everything you ever wanted to know about the act of laundry, including how-tos about washing wedding dresses, wool suits, and fur coats, in case anyone actually has their grandma’s furs. I don’t, obviously, but I still found it interesting, and also oddly inspirational.

Flashlight. My writing friend Jen (HI JEN) told me about this densely layered, nuanced, and complex novel about a father and daughter who disappear while walking along a beach in Japan. The daughter washes up ashore, alive, while the father does not. The story is so much more, and takes turns I was not expecting. I learned so much about the relations between Japan and Korea – both during and after World War II – as well as the relationship of North Korea to its neighbours and to the US. The three main characters all have trauma and are all incredibly, deeply unlikeable. The writing is so good that I felt physically uncomfortable reading about their fraught interactions with each other and with the world at large; there were a few times that I had to look away from the book, so awful do these people behave. The reading experience was immersive and compelling, and one of the adjacent characters was so completely delightful that it almost made up for the nastiness of the others. A really excellent book, so well-written and executed.

Upward Bound. I would term this book as autofiction; the story is about the clients and staff at Upward Bound, a day care program for adults with severe disabilities. The author himself is the first nonspeaking autistic graduate of UCLA, and I understand there is some controversy surrounding whether or not he actually wrote this book, or if his mother stepped in while he used Facilitated Communication. To be frank, I do not give a fuck if he literally wrote it or not, that is not the point. The point of this book is to bring humanity and understanding to an underserved population, a voice to the voiceless. And if his mother did write it? Well, it’s not much different from ghostwriting, is it? It’s a moving collection of chapters from different points of view, and I think it can only help bring compassion towards people who are very much othered in our society.

The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano. I love thinking about different paths our lives can take, and this book is all about that very thing. Rose is a woman who has never wanted children, and she’s always been clear about it. Her husband agrees, but then after they are married he changes his mind. This book goes through all different scenarios, a choose-your-own-adventure, if you will. I love books about marriage, particularly when there is strife, complication, and extramarital action. This book has it all and more, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a very nuanced and powerful statement on what it is to be a woman in our society, the pressures and resentments, the difficulties and the joys. I especially like that the book is not laid out linearly, rather all the lives are scattered throughout the book, so it kept me very engaged, even through the initial scene about prenatal vitamins, a fight that is repeated throughout the book. Thanks to Lisa (HI LISA) for the recommendation!

I’m looking forward to a pretty normal summer week; more gardening, more reading, and a nice afternoon with the girls coming up! I hope you are all having a beautiful July so far. xo