Westport

Day 18: Point of Order

 I actually thought last night while I was brushing my teeth that I might have to clarify this, so don't think that I'm just saying it so I can keep twinning with Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) - I think she likes mushrooms, so, sadly, we had already reached our 'never the twain shall meet' moment (but we'll always have The Time Traveller's Wife, and tequila).

I don't hate snow! I adored snow until just recently, and I still like it. It's pretty (for a while anyway), and it means I'm finally not hot all the time anymore, and Christmas is lame without it. I loved walking my kids home from school with me on the sidewalk and them climbing all the snowbanks talking non-stop (Eve said hi to all the snow-covered trees. The trees were all named Carl). Once I drove the back roads route to Zarah's place (HI ZARAH) and it was a winter wonderland (but I still usually drive the highway route because I have to pee every hour and a half and if I break down I probably won't end up a frozen corpsicle). The river trail we walk is magical in the winter.

AND let's not forget our outdoor bar nights during the lockdown. I actually miss them, although I think I'm the only one.

I just understand why some people DO hate snow, and I don't like being told what I should find joyful. I also think that, rather cruelly, I'm starting to experience mood dips related to big snow events. This is kind of like how I love the fall but always have a September depression - my brain is dumb, and broken.

It is World Trivia Night tonight, my .... counts on fingers... THIRTEENTH? Good lord. The first one was a snap decision to join Lynn (HI LYNN) even though I only knew her online and my husband was convinced I was going to be found dead in an alley. The very next year I went again, even though Matt was away and I had to farm my kids out and, uh, one of them had pneumonia. Mother of the year over here.

It went online for a couple of years during Covid. Tonight it's moved downtown to the convention centre, instead of being at the nice big airport-hangar-sized place with the nice big open parking lot, so I have driving and parking anxiety in addition to my sucking-at-trivia-and-being-team-dead-weight anxiety. It'll be fine. It'll almost certainly be fine. It'll probably be fine. I'm going to study some state capitals. 

Day 17: Various Assorted...Things

Well, I've left this too long and I've read some other posts and now I have performance anxiety and stage fright and blog envy and maybe postpartum depression.

I already did the comments thing. How about the recent pictures in my camera roll?

After a bout of unseasonably warm weather, which was beautiful and welcome and also kind of eerie, we got snow this week.

This prompted the first appearance this year of that snow meme. You know the one: If you persist in hating the snow, you will have less joy in your life but the same amount of snow.

This post gives my response to that meme. I feel mostly the same this year. I half wanted to say "what about poverty, or cancer? Should we find joy in those too, because if not we'll still have the same amount of cancer or poverty or murder hornets in our lives, but less joy?" But I'm generally trying to be less of an asshole, not more, so I did not.

The snow came the day after I took my mom for blood work, and got my flu shot, and took Lucy to the vet, and I didn't have to go out, so I felt lucky and cozy. My mom emailed that we were lucky that we went to the lab the day before. I said maybe if we'd gone on the snowy day there would have been fewer people, but also it would have sucked, especially since I had Lucy through no fault of my own.

I took Lucy to my parents' place before heading to work today, and then panicked every five minutes on my drive that I had forgotten to drop her off again. This made Mary Had a Little Lamb run through my head for a few minutes (brought the lamb to school one day school one day school one day).

Matt's colleague recently had a baby, so I got to do one of my favourite things: Assemble a basket of fun baby gifts, with almost no pressure because we are almost nobody to her so there is no reasonable expectation of the gifts being perfectly suited. Plus she had the baby earlier than expected so I know it's a girl, and before there were baby girls in my life I was all about the unisex colours, and then once there were baby girls in my life I was like, ooh, PINK. 

The mom is from Saudi Arabia, so this was the Canadian content:

We're going to my friend's cottage Saturday overnight so I made chicken stock so I can make soup. Chicken stock and then a small pot of vegetable stock so I can make a tiny soup for my vegan friend.

Here is what Eve sent me from biology:

And here is my favourite Facebook memory that popped up today:

Day 16: Halfway There

 I had a really lovely day after yesterday's hilarious crapfest. It snowed and some of the snow stayed, but I wasn't working so I spent the day cooking (making soup for a cottage overnight this weekend and batch cooking to freeze some stuff for when the kids come home - chicken breasts marinated in Sundried Tomato and Oregano salad dressing and Vietnamese style Lemongrass Chicken) and sorting through some papers and moving a few more things downstairs - the main floor is SO CLOSE to being the tidiest it has been since we moved in. 

But I am suddenly exhausted and can't think of anything intelligent and unified for a post, so I'm just going to scan the comments on my November posts so far and talk about some of them and also incidentally I love you guys.

Suzanne, whoo-hoo, you're still doing it!

Beachmama, thank-you for saying nice things about Angus, he was happy to see you this summer, and right back at you about Jonathan - remember when Eve said she wasn't going to put 'love' on ANY of her class valentines and Laura said "even on Jonathan's?"

Steph, Angus is mostly really liking grad school. The course work is right in his wheelhouse and he's finding it really interesting. He somehow landed a pretty cushy admin job in the provost's office and has been enjoying that too - he always said he never wanted to work in an office, but after cleaning windows all summer I think an office is not seeming too terrible. Also, he just arranged to assistant coach the baseball team at his former college for three credits, and I think that is going to be a totally amazing experience.

Pat - I can't even imagine the amount of chaos four kids could create, given what happened with my two (although to be honest, I'm not innocent either, especially because it's my plethora of bookshelves that take up so much space that there's not enough space to store everything else neatly).

Ernie - ha hahaha, you're saying four kids, hold my beer, right? If I was you I think I'd be wading through a hip-deep pile of hoodies, snack wrappers, craft supplies and school supplies constantly.

Thank you to everyone who complimented the dress I wore to the retirement reception. I bought it at the One World Bazaar with Jody (HI JODY) last year, and then did that thing where I hung it up and every time I looked at it felt worried it wouldn't look as good as I remembered. Jody finally reminded me about it and I put it on and really liked it. Plus, asymmetrical, which, as Eve puts it, is kind of my jam.

Steph - it IS really cool going back to my alma mater. I never really thought about it that much, Matt was totally the one driving Eve's application and excited about being connected to McMaster again, but I really love that when Eve talks about class buildings or libraries I know exactly what she means, and wandering around the campus in the fall was thrilling. I'm just really happy with how things turned out.

Suzanne - I do not always order a Stella anymore. I'm not even sure why. Often I just get tonic with lime, because I'm having trouble going a long stretch without a headache and because I had a long stretch of pretty severe depression and alcohol seemed like a bad idea. Sometimes I get gin in the tonic and sometimes I have this fucking delicious thing called a lemon drop, which I think is just vodka, lemon juice and simple syrup and maybe club soda, but somehow it is the absolute perfect mix of sweet and sour. Very occasionally I get a lemon drop and a shot of tequila because I can't drink more than one lemon drop and, well, tequila. 

Tudor - OMG, HOW did I never think of getting a shoemaker to put zippers in my Docs, this opens up a WHOLE NEW WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES.

Thank-you to everyone who stood up for the pumpkin painting - I agree both that it's not quite Halloweeny and that it is a good alternative - Eve keeps hers to decorate her room for weeks, so it works really well for her. 

Thank-you also to the Americans who answered the 'what do you cook at Thanksgiving and Christmas' poll. Would not have guessed beef tenderloin would be the surprise substitution.

I always try to put a picture in every post, because if I don't then when I post to Facebook it attaches a random photo from elsewhere in the blog, so here is a picture of a new thing that brings me joy. It's a diffuser from Sage that I bought on sale last year and then stowed in the basement to give myself for Christmas and forgot about. I remembered I had it while shopping with Zarah (HI ZARAH), found it and plugged it in when I got home. I love using it as a night light when I come in after Matt's asleep (which is almost always), and keeping it on in the morning when it's overcast. 

HI EVERYONE. And goodnight everyone. 

Some Days the Post Writes Itself: This is Not Often a Good Thing

 I know it's no secret that my mind is a little, shall we say, idiosyncratic these days when it comes to, well, thinking, which, after all, is kind of what a mind is FOR. I know, I know - pandemic, perimenopause, probably some other things that start with the letter P that I can't currently parse because, well, broken brain (I will stop overusing commas now, I promise).

Today may have set a new standard.

So I had to pick my mom up for blood work. This is not fun in the best of times, and right now half the labs in our immediate area are closed - I don't know why, I suspect staffing issues. So I told her to be prepared for it to suck. 

I pulled up to their house and I was going to go in for her, but I checked my phone to make sure I was going to the right location, and she came out. So I just started driving.

About halfway there I hear a gentle, inquisitive huff from the back seat.

I had forgotten that Lucy was back there in her carrier for me to drop off with my dad.

See? What the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK.

I couldn't really go back because we had done the online check-in and it made it sound like we were barely going to make it in time. Of course I knew there was an OVERWHELMING probability - nearly a certainty, really - that this was not the case, but if it was, and we missed the time, because of me? People, it does not bear thinking about. (My mom is wonderful. She helps and supports us. She is generous and kind. Almost always. Our relationship is great for like, 97% of the time. The other 3% is me driving her places. Especially if they're medical appointments). 

So we got there, got her checked in, and I went back to the car to hang out with my confused, annoyed, making-weird-noises dog. I would go in periodically to check on the progress of the queue, of which, for a long, long time, there was none.

My mom said she was getting light-headed from fasting. She had been fasting since midnight and it was 8:45 a.m. I shouldn't eye-roll because what the hell do I know, maybe that is a long time for most people, my hunger signals are so buggered I could go for thirty-six hours and still not know if I should be hungry.

Lucy was bugging out, and there was a pet store right next door to the lab, so I took her in to buy a new harness, which we've been meaning to do anyway. The nice gentleman was helping us. Lucy pooped on the floor. He stepped in it. I bought a bunch of stuff in partial recompense. It's a good thing reputable pet stores don't have actual animals anymore or I might have bought an apology iguana.

I walked Lucy around the parking lot. I fed her a bunch of liver treats. We got back in the car and she sat on my lap with her head in a sunbeam for a few minutes and I did yoga breathing. I told both of us that this was far from the worst thing that would happen in our lives. 

The line finally started to move. My mom finally got her blood drawn. I dropped her off, brought Lucy home and left again for my flu shot (Lucy didn't beg to get in her carrier and come with me like she usually does, can't imagine why).

I got my flu shot. I came home and remembered that I have to send Eve a stamped, self-addressed envelope so she can send me something (long story, another post). I get two envelopes out. I put a stamp on one and start addressing it to Eve. I wonder why it's so bumpy. I turn it over. I have put the stamp and the address on upside down.

Lucy and I are going to the vet now. Pray for us. 

Okay, Lucy and I are home. Things went fine. Well, for her they did. I'm the one that has to live with the fact that my dog will willingly do butt stuff for peanut butter treats. 

Day 14: Paper Chase

Work was good today - my computer turned on AND the software worked, which is rare enough that it bears a mention. But my headache is still lurking, and right now I kind of feel like this:

And I have to take my mom for blood work in the morning. And it's fasting, so she'll be hangry. *whimper*. To distract myself, I'm sorting through the mountain of papers that came out of the coffee table that used to live in our family room, until we moved it to the far end of the living room so our kids wouldn't bonk their heads on it, and that became its permanent home. Every once in a while in the intervening eighteen or so years I've opened the lid or one of the drawers to see if I could shove something in there, shuddered and backed away quietly. 

So the avalanche of newspapers, magazine pages and photographs on my kitchen table is proving to be a time capsule from my kids' early years. The heartbreaking optimism of the educational toy lists, Easter crafts and recipes. I'm employing a very methodical sorting system which consists of picking through six to eight items and plucking out things I still might want to read or cook (I MIGHT still make the flank steak with blueberry and gouda sauce, you don't know me!), and then grabbing the next thirty pages and flinging them into the recycling box. A while back I went through a bunch of clipped recipes and found the corresponding online counterparts to put in digital folders to make throwing them away easier. Then I carried on cooking the same four to six things I always do. It's good to have aspirations, right?

Sent this to our family chat:

There was a weird magazine book column that called A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews a beach read. 

There were lists of coolest record albums ever. Most of them I still haven't heard of.

There was a recipe for oysters on the half shell. Not sure what the heck was going through my head there - there's aspirational and then there's delusional. 

I don't know about you, but I always had visions of baking or doing crafts with my kids looking like this:

On very rare occasions, it actually did. More often it consisted of them painting topless or up on a chair buck naked smearing a bit of icing on a cupcake just so I could say they helped. 

Oh, here's a recipe so old it's called "Foil Pack Oriental Chicken Dinner" (the 'oriental' sauce is Kraft Chicken and Rib Bar-BQ sauce and peanut butter, naturally). Into the bin with the Flesh lipstick it goes.

 Obituaries for Charles Schulz and Katharine Hepburn. A letter from October 99, written on the back of a Direct Dial Information Center for the United States Postal Service... addressed to a couple named Beth and Sean, or possibly Glenn?

Guys.... is this my coffee table?

D is for Decrapifying, Or, My Lips Feel Weird

 After my migrainey Saturday I decided that I was going to take Sunday off to read and rest my back and head. So I woke up, went into the bathroom to shower, decided to do a quick face mask, and while I was waiting for the face mask to set, started cleaning out my makeup drawer. 

What have I become?

As usual, I forgot to take a before picture of the drawer in its overflowing state. This is the insert I use - I got the idea from my sister to use a utensil sorter.

My sister, being the clever, well-organized, smartypants pharmacist that she is, has probably never started cleaning hers out and thought "oh, how cute, there's an etching of a spoon on one of the sections, I never noticed that", and then realized it was a paper cutout that she forgot to remove before using it.

On the plus side, that section was shiny clean once I pulled up the paper.

So I spent a good part of the morning trying out various beauty products of dubious provenance, some from bygone eras. Stuff I bought on a whim, stuff I got from my ill-considered foray into the world of the Ipsy bag, stuff I got as ridiculous little samples when I bought other stuff, and, much like when I buy bagged salads, should have transferred directly from the shopping bag into the garbage, but didn't.

You guys, there were SO MANY lipsticks in there. You know how many I use? One (Revlon Superstar Brown). Very rarely, two (Va Va Violet), and on extremely rare occasions, a third (Ariana Grande REM Beauty Twilight, because LOOK, IT LOOKS LIKE A LITTLE SPACE CAPSULE THINGY WITH AN ASTRONAUT FACEPLATE), and Eve and I were in the states giddy with the non-Canadian beauty product possibilities.

I had actually forgotten about this one. The drawer clean-up yielded a few treasures of this ilk. Years and years ago I bought these tiny hair clips that were the exact right size and configuration to hold the sides of my hair up. As soon as I realized how perfect they were, I tried to buy more, but of course (like the mints, and Crabtree and Evelyn's Goat Milk soap and lotion, and my Docs with zippers) they were now unobtainable. I used them one by one - the cool colours, like green and blue and red, and then the less desirable ones, like purple - until they were toothless and sad.

But look! I unearthed two more that are almost fully intact!

(Don't say I'm just postponing the inevitable, postponing the inevitable is like seventy-five percent of my life, it is a NOBLE PURSUIT I say).

I was happy to find these toothpaste tabs and lip balm with sunscreen, chiefly because I could put them downstairs in the camping bin and not have to decide where to move them in the makeup drawer.

Why do I always think I'm going to like creamy liquid lipstick? I never do. Never.

Smelled like old crayons

Useless because I just said I don't like liquid lipstick, but it's tiny and adorable so I kept it. I'm an idiot.


Also tiny and adorable, but I threw it out because my fat fingers could not even get it open. I'm not THAT much of an idiot.

Made me long for the one that only smelled like old crayons.

I spent so many minutes squinting at the tiny writing on the sides of pencils trying to determine whether they were for my eyes or my lips. Can you see what this one says?



IT LITERALLY JUST SAYS CREME GEL LINER. Put it wherever the fuck you want, I guess. 

Pretty sure I bought this one before I had kids, *shudder*. Also, it's called Flesh, which is racist and also kind of gross.



From Urban Decay, called Roach - clearly I strutted into Sephora that day thinking I was just a little edgier than I actually am.





I don't even wear eye shadow. Why would I wear eye shadow that's nude, aka the exact colour of my eyelid already? Must have been the packaging, but

What?






Okay. And whew, you know what I really needed after trying on twenty-seven antique lipsticks?


A sugar lip scrub.



I can't decide if this was more or less traumatizing than the Great Cracker Cupboard Purge of 2011.