Have you ever played the game where you have to pick your favourite food to take with you to a desert island?
Okay fine, maybe you didn’t have to play these games because you weren’t born in the dark ages before en-route entertainment systems, like I was. Even though they were ubiquitous, we didn’t get a colour TV in our house until I was 17 because my parents were anti-TV before being anti-TV was a hipster parenting trend. No way would we have been allowed to “rot our brains” in the car, too!
Anyhoo, on road trips my sister and I grew up forced to count cows, play memory games like, “I took a trip…”, sing campfire songs, and when desperation really took hold, actually talk to our parents in the front seat.
It was Ye Olden Days.
I can’t remember if we ever played The Desert Island game in the car, but I had my answer ready, just in case. Were I to be marooned on a desert island and could only take one food, it would definitely be: TOMATOES.
Or CHOCOLATE, of course.
Or TOMATOES.
I can’t make major decisions, but if I were allowed to take both, it would make a balanced diet, right?
It was like a desert island dream (the “desert island” being Practical Man’s second cancer diagnosis and more-important-than-average covid self-isolation).
Unfortunately, the bonanza (that’s a Ye Olden Time word, by the way) was itty bitty cherry tomatoes and completely green. Even if we could have ripened them on a thousand window sills that we don’t possess, Practical Man told me that unless they have a tiny bit of colour on them, they won’t ripen from completely green.
He’s from even older Ye Olden Days than I am. He actually SAW a TV show called Bonanza when it was airing. He knows stuff.
Last year, we made an icky green tomato salsa that had waaaaaay too much cumin (“too much cumin” should be the slogan for 2020) and that turned us off anything that had “salsa” in the recipe title, for this year’s rescue crop. Fried green tomatoes is what everyone thinks of as soon as they hear “green tomatoes”, but we would have had enough for the whole county (and since we are hunkered in our aforementioned cancer/covid cocoon, hosting a Fried Green Tomato Open House isn’t really an option).
So, Practical Man put the thousands of small, green tomatoes in a big box and proceeded to invoke some kind of plant-savant-wizardy where he turned them a bit red using a combination of bananas and newspaper.
Betcha never saw that wizard trick in a Disney movie, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, did you?
Every couple of days, a few handfuls get pulled out of the magic box to ripen the rest of the way on the windowsills we DO possess. Abracadabra, we have ripe tomatoes. Be careful what you wish for.
Even with my eat-my-weight-in-tomatoes practices and desert island affection for what Italians called Love Apples, we needed to do something with the abundance.
“No tomato left behind” is our motto!
Enter, Roasted Tomato Sauce (or if you’d prefer to sound more foodie: Roasted Tomato Confit).
First off, you should know that anything with “confit” in the title makes you sound a bit pretentious, unless “confit” is part of your lexicon of origin or you are trying to charge money for it.
On the other hand, “roasted” in the title is an automatic win. It takes bitter things and makes them sweet. It takes veggie things and makes them candy. And, it’s so easy, any fool can do it (i.e.: me). Here’s how:
- cookie sheets/roasting pans
- parchment paper to put on said pans
- cut tomatoes in half in a bowl
- add 6 cloves garlic for every 1kg of tomatoes (or 3 mutant cloves that PM grew in our garden)
- add any desired spices (we advise against cumin–yuck!). We used oregano this time, but you could use basil or thyme or a combination.
- salt, pepper, olive oil to coat
Put in a 425F degree oven for around 40-45 minutes until bubbling and starting to caramelize.
Using an immersion blender, we carefully (HOT!) pulsed all the juices and yummy roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic into a goo that REALLY needs to come with me to my desert island.
We had it on pizza tonight. Homemade pizza dough (made with PM’s 8-9 year-old sourdough starter), homemade roasted tomato goo made with home-grown PM tomatoes and home-grown PM garlic, homemade sausage made with PM-made sausage.
Uh…YUM. Practical Man didn’t charge me money, but he should definitely get to use the word “confit”.
We froze the rest for pasta, soups, to smear on chicken or in my case, to just sit and lick off a spoon for self-soothing purposes, in case there’s another US election anytime soon.
We finished with two-bite brownies made with my world-famous recipe.
On the weighty matter of chocolate versus tomatoes during a pandemic, an election with world-wide implications, and cancer in the house:
This desert island is allowed to break all the rules.
Christine Fader is the author of two published books and loves tomatoes and chocolate (not together though, ewwwwww). Find her at christinefader.com
“Boing!” said Zebbidy.
“Boing, boing!” said Florence.
I never saw The Magic Roundabout, but my long-ago English boyfriend used to quote from it, sometimes.
These two short lines from a cartoon I’ve never seen feel like an anthem for 2020. I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt a lot like life has been going “boing”, these past months from one scary, uncertain, or sucky scenario to another, at the mercy of a pandemic that shows no signs of releasing its hold on Canada/the world for at least another year.
I’ve been missing a lot of my usual tra-la-la, even though I am one of the lucky ones who is safe and loved at home. I have lots of toilet paper (my Practical Man already had Survivalist tendencies) and a large property to wander (were I inclined to go outside). I have a small, steady pension income and too much fresh bread (Practical Man has had a sourdough starter in use for 8+ years).
I am very lucky and I try to focus on that while I’m wandering around in my fetching combo of productivity paralysis and pajama pants.
We were fairly pandemically prepared (all credit: Practical Man) to begin with, so the transition to DEFCON-5 Safety State has perhaps not been as traumatic for us as it has been for others. Practical Man finished treatment for throat cancer 18 months ago and has chronic asthma, so we were already being extra cautious about germs. Covid-19 versus our household has merely meant dialing up the germ-a-phobia a further notch and sinking even deeper into our hermit-like habits (all credit: pajama pants). I got to sew masks like the obsessive project-person I am (without ever having to shop – haha take that, minimalists!), and he got to feel smug about his well-stocked cold cellar and thriving sourdough starter.
Even so, I’ve felt very much like Florence and Zebbidy.
“So fortunate” – BOING!
“So nervous” – BOING, BOING!
“So comfortable” – BOING!
“So squirmy” – BOING, BOING!
I struggle with guilt amongst the BOING-ing because others are dealing with living in a big-city apartment, not seeing a tree for the three months of Spring. Or, “working at home”, not to mention home-schooling their kid(s) in French Immersion when they only took high-school French and their seven year-old gets mildly electrocuted while they’re on a conference call because multi-tasking is the great 21st century myth. Many are trying to make the impossible decision about school or don’t even get a decision because their family has no financial/parenting choices.
Still others deal with even more complicated situations. #BLM, #wildfires, #Brexit, #explosions #racism #refugeestatus #poverty, #foodinsecurity, #unemployment, #acutecovid, #chroniccovid, #frontlinework #cancertreatmentdelays #justtonameafew.
If, like me, you’re incredibly privileged overall, but you still need a new (and definitely ridiculous) way to express what it feels like to live in this year and you’re inclined to the quirky and geeky and several other of the seven dwarfs of High School Siberia like me, feel free to borrow the lines from that vintage, British cartoon.
“Boing!” said Zebbidy.
“Boing, boing!” said Florence.
I know it seems ridiculous. Hey, I’m just trying to match the unprecedented (do you hate that word as much as I hate it now?) situation over here.
You could try yelling, “Schlagzeuger!” (pronounced: Shlahg Tsoiger)
That means “drummer” in German, but I have been flinging it at other drivers under my breath for 35 years, because it’s both harmless and intensely satisfying, especially when you growl it with all the Arnold Schwarzenegger you can muster.
Now, Practical Man has lung cancer. The “very curable” throat cancer 1.5 years ago was cured. This is a shiny, new cancer.
How very 2020.
He went to urgent care for sharp chest pain. An x-ray showed a mass and so did the CT scan. Our region allows a 10-person social bubble, but from that day on, I haven’t felt like seeing anyone else but my Practical Man.
Take that, Covid!
Since June 8, it’s been an ever-more frenetic Zebbidy and Florence extravaganza of BOINGS.
Two biopsies through his chest wall plus considerable pain, internal bleeding and partial lung collapse. BOING!
Seizing summer on our little pontoon boat and in our pool, which we are so fortunate to have, while he is feeling okay. BOING, BOING!
Playing “find an open washroom during Covid, before you burst”, as I waited in the park during all his procedures and appointments (Covid rules). BOING!
Soaking up the waterfront breeze and and sunshine with physically-distant caring friends and family, as I waited. BOING, BOING!
Brain MRI, PET scan, bronchoscopy, and doctor’s appointments to hear results all by himself (Covid rules). BOING!
Physically-distant visits, outside, with small numbers of family and friends. BOING, BOING!
Upcoming surgery (hopefully, it happens before a next wave of Covid restricts hospitals again) to remove two tumours, lymph nodes, half his left lung, and a partridge in a pear tree, because that’s the “best chance for a cure.” What happened to “very curable”?? BOING!
Lung cancer would not have been found until much later and been inoperable, if it wasn’t for his chest injury. BOING, BOING!
We are sad and brave (him) and hormonally weepy and anti-social (me) and we look for the good news everywhere. So far, we have not been one of the incredibly heartbreaking people whose cancer treatment hasn’t even started, due to Covid. But, I also need to paraphrase Dickens:
“it was the suckiest of times, it was the even suckier, suckiest of times”.
Do you agree?
That doesn’t mean we don’t see the blessings. It doesn’t mean we’re not grateful for the good stuff. It doesn’t mean we don’t have hope for the future. But, whatever space you’re in and before your next Zoom call, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to wallow with me for a minute, an hour, or however long you can spare and need. Then, say it loud and in your best Arnold growl:
SCHLAGZEUGER!
I’ve been staring at certain people, lately.
People with the good ones.
In real life or on Instagram.
I wonder how they got them. I wonder if they’re natural or if they had professional help. I’ve even messaged someone, complimenting theirs.
My name is Christine and I’m an eyebrow creeper.
Author, Lisa Scottoline, wrote in her Philadelphia newspaper humour column a while ago about the disappearing eyebrows that come with age and I found myself thereafter scrutinizing mine.
She was right, I thought, as I squinted into my vintage dressing table mirror (with corresponding bubbly glass that is actually more like looking into the surface of a pond, than a mirror). I had to turn on all the lights and get up real close but when I did, I saw that I am, indeed, a middle-aged woman with disappearing eyebrows!
The hair on my head turned from dark blonde to very brown, in my thirties. It still startles me sometimes. I have some strands of grey in my hair but my eyebrows seem to be rebelling, by not hopping aboard either the brown or grey train.
They are staying blonde. Clinging to an earlier identity, I guess: blonde and basically invisible – just like I was in high school.
Back then and not being the sort to spend a lot of time (any time) on easthetic-type activities, I always just let my eyebrows live their lives in peace. No plucking, no waxing. They just sat there, on my face, above my blue-grey eyes. They weren’t bushy or particularly straggly and even if they had been, I still don’t think I would have ever noticed them.
But now that I have a rural, home-based lifestyle and barely go outside, I find myself wondering: are my eyebrows really living their best life?
You were thinking that too, weren’t you?
I’m also not sure how this fits with my being purr-fectly content to spend most of my days in lounge pants (read: pjs), leggings, or yoga pants.
As a writer and career advisor, I work mostly from home and I don’t dye my hair or even get it cut more than a couple times a year. I’m surprised at the depth of my eyebrow envy. Given my personality and my job, I should be able to let my poor, pale, brow caterpillars rest in peace. But, increasingly, I’m doing videos and social media engagements–a world where it seems that everyone has ah-mazing things happening above their eyes.
Like Jessica Kellgreen-Fozard.
Like Tara McCallen.
These are all women doing inspiring, world-changing advocacy and disruption work. They don’t seem frivolous (as I tell myself that my eyebrow concerns are) but they do their world changing with such lovely eyebrows.
Swoony-Swoon-Swoon.
Not only that, but I feel like we’re at optimum “raising eyebrow” time in our culture at the moment and I’m missing out.
I think I might need impeachment-worthy eyebrows.
Yes, oh yes.
I am distracted in Instagram videos and on TV by the sight of a perfectly-curved arch. I wonder how people get those vintage-style eybrows. They swoop up over to a delicate point and I am frankly slightly breathless with their beauty. But, surely they must have to start with eyebrows that don’t exist?
My eyebrows just don’t bend that way!
I had my eyebrows plucked once years ago, when someone dragged me to her regular appointment. I was reluctant and it was painful and I broke out in a bumpy rash, all over my eyelids and forehead.
Ha! You want shapely eyebrows, said the universe? I see your vanity and raise you one violent case of contact dermatitis!
And that was before the current eyebrow craze.
Really, I feel strange to even talk about this. I didn’t think I was the sort to give in to this sort of appearance-focused idiocy, no, no, no. Of course, in the grand scheme of anything, it’s not important. But, eyebrows follow me everywhere these days. They’re just out there, on everyone’s face.
And then, there are the eyebrow products at the drug store.
Yikes.
I’ve always had an aversion to the cosmetics aisles (incompetence) and I think other people must be much better at drawing and colouring than I am. I’m both VERY near-sighted and slightly far-sighted both (welcome to your 50s) so doing anything in a mirror feels like a contortionist attempt I’m not qualified for. Not only that, but all the brush-y things and the pencil-y things in the world don’t seem to result in sassy eyebrows. In fact, when I’m done using them, they only remind me of those products that encourage you to spray paint your bald spot or your roots. My blond eyebrows are lying there with brown paint that somehow only goes underneath them, and doesn’t coat the individual hairs.
Yikes.
For better results, I’m told you need tattooing and/or micro-blading.
Anything that has the word “blading” in it, scares the vanity out of me. I just can’t work up the nerve, maintenance, [or the money] to go full-on eyebrow.
On Home Town, a decorating show I watch, Erin Napier has great eyebrows. She has also said (and believe me, I was paying attention because it was about eyebrows!) that “shutters” are like the eyebrows of a house.
Our house has great eyebrows.
I think this means that our house has better eyebrows than I do.
Sigh.
Christine Fader’s second book is, Just What the Doctor Ordered: The Insider’s Guide to Getting into Medical School in Canada. Find her at http://www.christinefader.com
I’m going to what feels like the Mean Girl of cities in a couple of weeks.
You know the one.
She’s all Chanel and couture and linen and lipstick. They speak fancy French there, not the regular, old, Canadian kind (and even my Canadian French is pretty patchy and rusty).
Even my suitcase screams “Not Parisian”.
I lived in Europe with my family as a teen and then in my early and later 20s, on my own. But, somehow, I never got to Paris.
London and York and Cornwall, I love. Hamburg and Heidelberg, too.
But Paris, is a big old question mark for me.
Will it be like the movie, French Kiss? Or, more like Before Sunrise? Or, Amelie?
Or, is it actually a REAL PLACE with garbage trucks, and people wearing pajamas in public, and bad cooks?
My parents went to Paris for a holiday when we lived in England, but for some reason, they didn’t take their teenagers with them. Who knows why?
I was too broke when I lived close by to get there, and my friends lived in Germany. So, I just kept flying over Paris, as if she didn’t matter one hoot.
Take that, mean girl!
But now, my German friends are living in Paris, in the ninth arrondissement. I think that means near ALLLLLL the Pain au Chocolat (one of the main reasons I’m even going to Paris), right?
And, I am slightly intimidated.
According to Canadian/US versions of Paris, I am prepared to feel inferior on a number of levels including my weight, my fashion sense (lack thereof), not to mention my (quelle horreur) love of patterned fabric.
French chic? Mais, non. Just call me “flabby, shabby chic”.
I am not sleek or sophisticated. I am much more inclined to the chubby and cheerful.
But, so is Ina Garten and she supposedly loves Paris, right? So did Julia Child and she was tall and awkward.
Vives les Tall and Awkward!
With a side of Still Too Many Shoes for My Suitcase.
Practical Man disliked Paris when he was there so he’s glad to be sitting this one out. Mind you, he dislikes ALL cities so he’s not really a neutral opinion. Instead, I am travelling with my sweet sister-in-law Roadrunner, who speaks Northern Ontario French as her first language at home. She’s never been to Europe. In fact, this is her first trans-Atlantic flight. Although she is fluent in the language, I’ve heard that Parisians can be quite cutting when it comes to The Canadian Form of French. My also fluent father was once asked in Paris where he learned his French and when he told them Canada, they said, “c’est domage (that’s too bad)”.
Hmmm.
I do love me some vintage, flea markets, and sparkly lights. Someplace called The City of Lights seems to be a good city for that sort of tra-la-la.
Anyhoo, if you’ve been there, here are the questions I have about going to Paris:
- I expect there to be accordions playing in the background as we stroll around. But, should I be prepared with some Charles Aznavour on my playlist, just in case?
- Is there a “how not to overpack” Pinterest board for people who are not Marie Kondo or wearing exclusively Lululemon?
- If I can’t get rid of my vertigo before I leave and end up getting arrested because I’m wobbling down the streets like I’m intoxicated, will they bring me the French version of Bread and Water (baguette and Perrier) in jail?
- Is black the only colour people wear? What if I look more like “Widowed Nonna from a Godfather movie” than “Audrey Hepburn” in black?
- Where can I rent a Betsy bicycle or a moped so I can ride along the Seine with a baguette sticking out of the basket, humming La Vie en Rose?
- Is it wrong to have a pain au chocolat EVERY morning while I’m there? Wait, don’t answer that.
- Will my brain actually turn into a pretzel if I try to speak German (with our host family), Paris French (let’s face it, that won’t be possible), Canadian French (only slightly more possible), Bad French (definitely possible), and English (please direct me to the nearest pain au chocolat?) in one holiday?
- How many beautiful buildings can you drool on before they kick you out of the country?
- Ditto for Boulangerie, Patisserie and other “erie” windows?
I’m excited.
And intimidated.
It’s like a first date with someone way out of your league.
Tra-la-la.
Or, as they say in Paris…
[nonchalant and chic expression full of fabulous cheekbones].
December first(ish) marks the start of my holiday season. The lights go on, the mantel is decorated, the tree goes up.
Tra-la-la-la-la!
In our house, we celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve at this time of year. We are more spiritual than religious but we still have family gatherings and dates with friends, snow-filled New-Year’s Eves at a favourite place in the deep, deep woods, and stockings filled with chocolate that you’re allowed to eat for breakfast (it’s a rule). Some years, we have a festive gathering in December, where we invite friends and family to join us at our wildly festooned house for snacks and visiting but this year, things are a bit different.
This year, we have an extra visitor and it’s the visitor no one wants.
Practical Man was diagnosed with cancer in September and started treatment in November. He’s supposed to be finished the actual treatments on December 20 (Merry Christmas!) but the side effect symptoms likely continue to worsen for a few weeks after that. His type of cancer has a good prognosis (everyone keeps telling us) so we’re hoping that this “blip” will be something we will simply remember years from now as “that time he had cancer”.
Say it enough and that will someday become a sentence that just rolls off the tongue, right?
Anyhoo.
Throat (oropharyngeal) cancer may be quite curable but the recovery from it seems especially cruel — the treatments wants to attack your speech, your skin, your swallowing, your saliva, your breathing, your nourishment and YOUR BEARD! Food tastes terrible and he chokes quite frequently and he is more tired than I’ve ever seen him. But, his treatment is manageable at the moment, if he rests. What the final few weeks will bring, we don’t know.
It could be a lot worse. We tell ourselves this with every new symptom and struggle. We are grateful that we can be together through this, without worry over money or time. We are fortunate not to have to forgo food or housing to find the funds needed every day for parking or new creams or medicines that could help. We are blessed to have supportive family and friends and to be enduring treatment with a likely positive outcome.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
“You’re getting to the hard part now,” they said this week.
His “team” keeps close tabs on his symptoms and weight, prescribing jams and jellies with long names and lineups at the pharmacy. When you’re using the over-burdened Canadian healthcare system and you have a TEAM that meets with you every week, you get the idea that it’s fairly serious business. He endures the mask of torture with each of his 35 treatments and never complains, even though I see the toll it takes on him to be pinned to a table under an extremely tight web of fibres across his face and throat.
The Team warns constantly of the “cumulative effects of radiation” and what’s to come with worried eyes and check-ins that make my stomach drop out. He made it through a rare arterial hemorrhage, surgery to fix it, and repeated hospital visits and stays in week #2 of treatment.
But, that was early days–the supposedly “easy” part of treatment.
“You’re doing really well,” they also said this week, their tone telling us not to get complacent.
Despite everything that has already happened, I constantly feel like we are waiting for something large and mysterious to come down the chimney–and it’s not Santa.
When the treatment dates were revealed, it got me thinking about what our holiday season would look like this year. We have no children of our own, so who would miss it, if we didn’t bother with the lights going on, the mantel being decorated, the tree going up?
Practical Man endures the holiday palooza for me. He wouldn’t mind skipping it. So, why do it?
Um…have you met me? The one who loves little more than some seasonally-approved festooning?
Still, maybe we should just forgo the lot for this year, I thought. Decorations are really superficial, after all. He won’t feel well enough to attend many gatherings and we anticipate the height of pain and symptoms to be around Christmas Day. We should just skip it.
But, but, but.
A thought caught my breath in my throat: what if?
What if we were like my friend? Her daughter took her last breath on Monday as her body rejected the lungs that were transplanted in her only last year.
My heart breaks.
What if we were like others we know of who endure radiation and chemotherapy and still face a terminal outcome?
More breaking.
What if?
Would I want this Christmas to be festooned and full of light?
Or dark and passed over, as not worth the effort?
I realize how fortunate we are to worry about something so seemingly trivial. But, when I called it “silly”, Practical Man pointed out:
“If you turn off the lights before it’s time, you may never find a reason to turn them back on.”
And our decision to partake in the sparkle of the season is not to say everyone should do it this way. But, I am a silly, festive-loving person and even if the holiday festooning is a bit much for him, Practical Man loves that about me.
And I love him. So very much.
The lights are up and they get to stay on. Which reminds me again:
Despite this very cancer Christmas, we are so very blessed.
Merry Christmas and Happy Festive Season to all who celebrate at this time of year.
Our wish for you this year is a most precious one: good health for you and your loved ones.
Know someone who is thinking about becoming a doctor? My new book, “Just What the Doctor Ordered: The Insider’s Guide to Getting into Medical School in Canada” is now available.
There was that time when I bought the REALLY expensive chicken by accident.
$75+ worth of On-Sale, free-range, raised-with-classical-music-in-the-barn-and-wearing-knitted-chicken-sweaters kind of chicken, instead of the On-Sale chicken for the non-fancy-pants folks.
So, I can’t be trusted in the grocery store.
Now, we have an excess of sour cream: in fact, an entire, unopened container, ready to expire.
Doesn’t that sound perilous? “Ready to expire”.
Refrigerator products are so melodramatic.
Anyhoo, I thought I could be trusted. In fact, I felt rather like Ma in Little House on the Prairie when I had a light bulb moment this evening about the nearly-dead dairy product.
I know, I thought. I’ll make Grandma Helen’s coffee cake.
She used to feed it to us for special breakfasts and it’s all brown-sugary and sour-cream-donut-y and NOT CHOCOLATE, so clearly suitable for breakfast because that’s a rule.
I rushed off on a surge of pride to tell Practical Man as these Ma-in-Little-House-frugal moments are rare from me. Grandma Helen’s coffee cake has lots of sour cream in it and would use up most of the almost-at-the-pearly-gates container.
Yay, me!
While Practical Man was doing the garbage/recycling in the garage (and no doubt marveling at my frugal brilliance), I made my usual mess in the kitchen.
In addition to flour on the floor, nuts behind the canisters, and butter up my arm, while whipping up the batter, I managed to lift it out of the bowl to “clean” the beaters and they sprayed batter all over the entire world. There was some in my eyebrow, some on the backsplash, some on Mars, I’m pretty sure. And, it’s a sticky batter, this sour-cream extravaganza.
As in: not easily remedied before certain people come in from the garage.
But, I got that sorted (I think – this will explain the weird blobs you see on our light fixtures a few months from now) and grabbed the one-foot-in-the-grave, but un-opened sour cream container from the fridge.
I opened it and stopped short.
It looked funny.
White, like sour cream.
But, also not.
Kind of chunky.
Maybe it had already gone off?
Or, maybe, maybe, maybe…
I realized with a sudden taste of sour dairy in my mouth,
it was not drama-queen sour cream
but instead
!!!!
highly-tricky-and-well-disguised-all-except-for-the-dastardly-label-oh-please-say-this-happens-to-you-too-won’t-you, COTTAGE CHEESE.
Ummmm…
This is precisely, almost exactly like that time I was wondering why the ginger we had frozen in the freezer was so uncooperatively melty when I was trying to grate it.
(It was blobs of frozen garlic puree, hardy-har-har).
I have worked at an institute for higher learning for nearly 25 years. Honest.
Luckily, Practical Man had brought home a new container of sour cream this very evening.
So, instead of using up excess sour cream, I had to use brand-new sour cream so now, we have to buy some more.
And, I have to figure out what to do with on-its-last-breath cottage cheese.
I’m pretty sure I can’t be trusted though.
Sigh.
The cake is really good.
Tra-la-la.
I have developed a new problem, recently.
I’m coveting cupolas.
Worshipping weather vanes.
I went to Vermont, you see.
“Verdant Vermont”, as Practical Man and I called it as we ooh’d and aah’d our way through the Spring countryside rolling hills.
We have been there before but this time, we noticed that it was very green.
We’re pretty sure this isn’t how “verdant” is pronounced but for this trip, we decided we should make it rhyme with “Vermont”.
Verdant Vermont, get it?
They are probably going to want to adopt it as a slogan, of course.
“Visit us in Verdant Vermont.”
We amuse ourselves easily, yes sirree.
That’s how you get to 20 years of wedded bliss, dontcha know.
All the verdant was probably on account of the torrential rain the day and night before. During the storm, we were very cozy in our vintage Boler travel trailer, alone in the campground. I am reading my way through my vintage Nancy Drew collection so I was deeply embroiled in The Mystery of the Bungalow (and wondering how one canoes wearing a dress) while I listened to the lovely sound of rain on the Boler roof.
A 13-foot trailer seems so luxurious after a lifetime of camping in tents and when it’s pouring sheets of rain outside.
Maybe the other campers didn’t have a vintage Nancy Drew book to antagonize and entertain them because they had all left. Even the ones in giant motor homes with big-screen TVs and walk-in closets. It seems that the first sign of inclement weather causes those campers to run home to a different big-screen TV and walk-in closet.
That’s okay because it means more ice cream for me.
The morning after the storm, I ate Ben and Jerry’s at 10:00 am, tra-la-la.
There was a factory and it was cultural experience so I had two scoops: fudge brownie something and chocolate peanut-butter something else.
I’ve never had Ben and Jerry’s ice cream before.
I might need to try it again to make sure I like it.
Then, we went to the chocolate factory nearby.
Perhaps you can see why I love Vermont.
So much tra-la-la!
We followed the windy roads and hunted for the covered bridges that were on the map.
We went up the super fun, seasonal road to Smuggler’s Notch and marvelled at the giant boulders all around that had been chucked down the mountain, probably by some demi-god having a temper tantrum.
And, I fell in love with all the houses.
I think there is a Vermont rule: no ugly houses allowed.
The Pinterest addict in me approves.
I also fell in love with the cupolas.
This cupola was in New York state actually, but you get the idea.
Little ones.
Big ones.
Ones with vents.
Ones with weather vanes.
I want one.
My kingdom for a cupola!
We have two sets of louvered doors in one of our (cupola-less) outbuildings, so now, I have dreams and plans for an upcycled cupola of our very own.
Practical Man is on the case. So far, he’s going along with putting a cupola on the workshop building.
That’s how you get to 20 years of wedded bliss, dontcha know.
But, I’m not sure I’m allowed to go back to Vermont.
I’m a wannabe.
Olympian, that is.
Because I’ll never, ever get there.
Case in point: I’m 2.3 times the age of most Olympians.
Not only that but, I cut myself getting dressed this morning.
I know not how.
I just know that I finished the process of swaddling myself in soft fabrics today, with cuts on my left thumb.
There was blood and stinging and everything!
Mysterious.
You can see why the Olympics are definitely out.
I’d probably strangle myself with my skis.
But, I watch with enthusiasm.
And chocolate, of course.
[Photo credit: clearhrconsulting]
Even though we have channels that span the country.
In my case, what I see always seems to be CURLING.
From Halifax to BC, that’s all there is: curling, curling, curling.
I am not a fan.
I know it’s practically anti-Canadian to say this, and it’s not that I don’t admire the incredible precision and skill involved, but all the chitty-chat in the ends and the yelling (HURRY HARD!) annoys me.
If I had spent my whole life training to be the brush-y person and then someone kept yelling at me with instructions, I’d be thinking nasty words in my head.
Worse than the nasty words I think when I find that curling is on AGAIN. The Curling Olympics, it seems like!
“Stop telling me what to do, rock-throwy person,” I would mutter to myself, “I’ve been using this brush-y thing since before you were born.”
Something like that.
Anyhoo, curling is also too slow for a wannabe such as myself.
I prefer the death-defying sports that I could never do.
I, a serious fainter and spinny person, who can’t get even dressed without wounding myself, fancy myself a skeleton athlete, slope-style snowboarder or ski jumper.
Yes indeedy.
I am delusional.
Powered by dark chocolate.
Which is maybe what leads to the next thing I love about the Olympics:
The words.
Oh, I know it’s supposed to be all about feats of athleticism and stuff and of course that stuff is really cool but I also notice the costumes (gear/uniforms/whatever) and most fun of all: the Olympic words!
Like: Super G
and Bobsleigh (NOT sled? Enquiring minds wonder why.)
and Skeleton.
Like: Lutz
and Alley-Oop
and Twizzles (my personal favourite).
I mean, who doesn’t like to say fun words like that? Even if we have no earthly idea what many of them mean?
You can’t say a word like Twizzle without smiling, can you?
It’s so accessible to us regular folk.
We may not be able to make our bodies twist in those ways, but we might be able to twist our tongues in the shape of a snazzy new word or two.
Do it with me:
Lutz, piece of chocolate.
Piece of chocolate, Twizzle!
See?
It’s so tra-la-la.
Or, should I say:
Alley-Oop!
It’s things like this that make it seem like the Olympics are for everyone to share.
Even someone who can’t put on a skirt without injuring herself.
I am loathe to admit it, but someone I DO. NOT. LIKE. helped me last week.
You could say I was a little desperate.
And, desperate times call for desperate measures, dontcha know.
Like enlisting the aid of someone you REALLY. DON’T. LIKE.
It all started when I decided to retire from my day job, which means that my dental benefits will stop soon.
You know how retirees always seem to say that they’re “so busy” and they have “no idea how they had time for a job, before”?
I figure that’s on account of all the brushing, flossing and swishing. I’m going to be spending a good part of my retirement brushing, flossing and swishing, yessiree.
Don’t want any cavities to crop up.
Cavities are expensive to us pensioners.
Vintage Fisher Price – Dentists
Mind you, I’ve only ever had one cavity before. But, I scared the pants off my dentist at the time, because I fainted after I got the filling.
And when I faint, I look dead.
My already low heart rate drops to nearly nothing. My already low blood pressure is non-existent. My skin looks grey/blue. More than usual, I mean.
You may have heard of Heroin Chic. This is Dentist Chic.
It’s a look!
And then, people attempt to stick a tube down my throat.
Totally unnecessary, but I guess when you appear dead, desperate times call for desperate measures.
I woke up just in time, tra-la-la.
My dentist looked grey too, after all the excitement but he’s not half dead like me, so no one tried to stick a tube down his throat.
My dentist is retired now. Recovering from the trauma of doing my filling, perhaps. Probably brushing, flossing and swishing. Not to mention golfing, cruising, and travelling (him, not me).
Cavities aren’t great for pensioners but I suspect that they are quite good to former dentists.
Now, I have a new dentist. He graduated two minutes ago.
I have reached THAT age.
Even though I’m retiring nearly 20 years early.
Sigh.
And, horror of horrors, I failed my dental exam.
I had to get two tiny cavities fixed.
On account of the impending loss of my dental plan, the new dentist said I should get them done now, instead of waiting for them to grow up into real cavities.
I wanted to ask him if I should wait for him to grow up into a real dentist, but he had a needle in his hand, so I kept my cavity-filled mouth shut.
Plus, I only have so much time for dental visits, what with all the brushing, flossing and swishing in retirement, you know. Best to get baby cavities taken care of, now, by the baby dentist.
Sigh.
During the filling, he was very patient and kind with high-maintenance me.
He was very slow to tip the chair back, lest I get my spinny vertigo.
He checked in with me frequently about how I was feeling, lest the “I look dead” fainting was overtaking me.
I didn’t faint, but I’m not too proud to admit that I had to use all my evasive maneuvers to prevent it.
And also, one I AM ashamed to admit.
Keep in mind that I can faint while cooking pancakes. I can faint while I’m sleeping. I take daily medication which mostly helps but not completely.
I’m such a joy to Practical Man.
He never complains. He’s my Mr. Darcy.
I’m not the least bit afraid of the dentist or pain or fillings. And my new dentist, like my former one, is really wonderful. It’s not his fault that he makes me feel like his mother.
But, my body is a big ol’ drama queen. The slightest hint of adrenaline and it tells my nervous system to go to DEFCON 5.
So, I ate a big, salty lunch and drank a bunch of water before Practical Man escorted me to my appointment.
I crossed and uncrossed my legs in the chair, trying to pump the blood back to my heart and brain.
I flexed my ankles back and forth and back and forth.
I huffed, like a woman in labour, to push my diaphragm so my blood pressure would go up.
I tried to concentrate on the Fixer Upper episode that was on HGTV on my in-flight TV (dental offices have gotten quite fancy, I’m telling you.)
Nothing was working.
I could feel my heart rate dropping into the Zombie Zone.
There was a loud buzzing in my ears (and it wasn’t the drill).
I was losing my vision (and not just the age-related kind).
And, I was already lying down (the usual advice from onlookers).
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
So, I did it.
I called on the one person I know who can raise my blood pressure.
The person who I find to be an unfortunately extremely visible and powerful, despicable human being.
I thought about HIM.
He-who-should-not-be-named.
Not the Harry Potter one.
The Apprentice one. The can’t-say-anything-nice-or be remotely tolerant-or-empathetic one.
Lest you think I’m just picking on a politician, my distaste for him pre-dates his current role by decades.
I chanted his name over and over in my head.
Almost immediately, I felt my blood start to boil (or at least, get lukewarm, being half dead as I am).
The point is, it worked.
I didn’t faint.
But now, I need an exorcist.
Sigh.
Who knew retirement was going to cost so much?
A Vintage Life 