THIS JUST IN

good things (might) come to those who wait: the boots have just dropped in price!

maybe it's a leap-day miracle, maybe the store finally realized they wouldn't move any inventory at $202, i don't know – but i decided to check the price this morning and it had dropped another $60!

at last!

the boots were now listed at $144... plus, i've been hanging on to a 10%-off code for weeks, so they rang in at $130 + tax.

they'd reached my price point!

so, they were promptly ordered. within a week or so, i'll have them on my feet and the mystery of whether they fit/cause ankle pain/are what i've been seeking in a winter hiker will finally be resolved.

last call at the washing machine

many of my favourite products have been discontinued in recent years. scents or flavours or varieties i've loved keep vanishing from store shelves seemingly overnight.

shampoos, conditioners, lotions, soaps, deodorants, detergents, fabric softeners, ice cream, chips, cookies, beverages... pretty much anything manufactured. even maxi pads, fer cryin' out loud! it's hard to be brand loyal to anything when brands keep needlessly switching up their product lines every three to five years. i've lost count of how many times TIDE has changed its scent, or how many different types of deodorant i've used in my life, or how often i've gone shopping to pick up a refill of whatever, only to discover to my profound horror that its spot on the shelf has been taken away and yet another item has been added to the "nope, we don't make that anymore" list.

sometimes, when i get a whiff that a product might be discontinued (as in: supply seems to be dwindling or disappearing), i race around and scramble to stock up with as much as i can before it's gone. i did this back in the early 2000s when the fleecy brand of fabric softener – which my grandmother, mother and i had used since i was born – suddenly changed its fragrance. it hadn't changed for decades, but someone somewhere thought it needed a "refresh." the new scent was like strong cologne and i haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated it instantly.

i'm super-sensitive to scent and even more particular when it comes to which fragrances i like. or love. original-scent fleecy falls squarely into the LOVE category. love love love.

so, at the time (i think it was probably around 2001) and knowing how important fragrance is when it comes to my laundry, YB and i went looking for big bottles of the original scent. it was challenging: the old scent was called "fresh fragrance" on the label, and the new version was called "fresh air." a fine line, but a crucial one.

after searching through umpteen stores without success, we hit the motherlode: a zellers (ironically, a store chain that has also vanished in the years since) had some classic scent left and i bought EVERY SINGLE BOTTLE.

the actual last bottle i have

each bottle was more than 3L in volume, and i think i bought ten of them. maybe 12, maybe nine. i don't remember the exact number anymore. but i do know it was every one they had, and that i marked each one "vickie's magic blend" in sharpie before storing them in my parents' basement, lest they be used by anyone else by accident.

and i wasn't able to find any more (not even ONE bottle) at any other stores thereafter. i did manage to find a couple of boxes of the "fresh fragrance" dryer sheets, but even those were yanked from shelves pretty quickly. i felt like i was some kind of bizarre laundry conservationist, working to preserve the essence of (literally and figuratively) of loads gone by.

in the nearly two decades since, i've carefully rationed that fleecy, using it only for bedding because that's what i associate most with the fragrance. it's a familiar, cozy, comforting scent that i will forever associate with childhood and sleep, even though everything i owned was rinsed in it for many, many years. i wasn't as sparing as i could have been at the outset, using the full amount per load for numerous loads. it's only in the past six or seven years that i started mixing the fleecy with other fabric softeners as a way to extend its rapidly dwindling life.

as of this blog post, i still have about 2/3 of a box of the sheets left (i'm saving those for last – the open box currently sits in my linen closet, infusing it with fleecy-smelling goodness) – but my very last surviving bottle of the liquid is almost empty. i'd say i have about half a cup remaining.

HALF A CUP.

and then it will be gone.

forever.

after almost 50 years of that fragrance being a part of my life, it's quickly coming to an end.

i've taken to using just over a tablespoon per load – again, only bedding – and mixing it with downy (another fabric softener whose original scent was long ago replaced with a poor-but-tolerable substitute) + a store-brand dryer sheet, all in a bid to stretch those last remaining drops of fleecy as far as they can possibly be stretched.

remarkably, and perhaps as a testament to why i love it so much, the fleecy liquid did not deteriorate in quality, consistency OR scent after all these years. it still works and smells exactly the same as it always did! (by contrast: bottles of downy will congeal into unusable, unpourable, undissolve-able glop if not used within about a year. i learned this the hard way more than once.)

it's all hugely depressing, if i'm being honest. i know it might seem silly – after all, it's fabric softener! – but it's like a big part of my life will evaporate when i pour that final tablespoon into the rinse water. the smell of fleecy is home. it's my mom. it's bedtime. it's all things good and warm and known. *sigh*

and i'm about three loads from it ceasing to exist.

but i am impressed that i somehow managed to make those bottles i scored almost 20 years (!) ago last as long as they did. that final load will be be sad, i think.

what i'm watching: february 2020 edition

for me, one of the interesting things about going back through old posts is seeing what i was excited about, entertainment-wise, over the years. specifically: which TV shows was i faithfully watching? and how many of them am i still watching now, all these years later? (spoiler alert: save for Friends reruns and Big Brother every summer, zero.)

in the same way that a song or piece of music can instantly conjure memories or feelings for some people, a TV character or series or even a key plot point immediately brings me right back to who i was and what i was doing and what was happening in the world when a given show was on the air.

flipping back through this blog, there was So You Think You Can Dance, which is still on but which i abandoned a long time ago. there were the amazing but short-lived ABC dramas -- like Once & Again and Relativity and Six Degrees -- which were all cancelled well before their time. and Gilmore Girls, to which i bid adieu in network form but never picked up again in its netflix reboot.

so, i figured it might be nice to take a look at my current viewing habits and record them for posterity. that way, years from now, i can look back at this post with fondness and remember a bit about what was going on in my life.

these days, i have very few "must-watch" series. among them, though, are:

* This is Us. easily one of the best TV dramas out there right now, and a worthy successor to those ABC series listed above (even though this one is on NBC). i don't think there's been a single episode that hasn't made me cry, often more than once. the way the writers seamlessly weave the past, present and future into the narrative is astounding to me.

* New Amsterdam. this medical series is sort of ER Lite – deeper and less soapy than Grey's Anatomy, but lacking the gravitas and girt of the multi-emmy-winning drama. ryan eggold is a fabulously likeable lead, and the supporting cast are all charming.

* The Magicians. super-smart, sexy, sassy and insanely inventive sci-fi/fantasy. it's a seriously niche show and i only know a couple of other people who actually watch it, but i look forward to its return every january.

* the Mad About You reboot. unlike every other reboot so far – i'm looking at you Will & Grace (shrill), Murphy Brown (TERRIBLE) and The Conners (ruined by the obnoxious kids) – i loved loved loved this revival. the original series ended long before this blog started, but i'd been a devoted fan. YB and i still quote from the original series to this day! so, settling back in with the buchmans was like revisiting old friends. and they still had the same spark, the same cadence, the same affection as they did back in the 1990s. though it was only a 12-episode run, i'm hoping it returns again.

* How to Get Away with Murder. i'm hanging on until the end, which will happen later this spring. it's been a bizarre, sometimes-satisfying-sometimes-not series, but it's managed to hold my interest with each season's cliffhanger ending. kudos to the writers for knowing how to hook viewers year in and year out.

* Better Call Saul. i was a late convert to Breaking Bad (i binged it on Netflix years after its TV run) and fell into BCS thereafter. it was a tough sell at first -- i struggled to get through the first season. but it grew on me. season five just started and i'm still on board.

* Top Chef. LOVE THIS SHOW. even the canadian version! that is all. see also: The Great British Baking Show and The Great Canadian Baking Show. cooking series are incredibly relaxing. and the upcoming new season of Top Chef will be an all-stars edition. WHOO-HOO!

* Homeland. still watching, though a year after the rest of the world (i don't have HBO, so i always have to wait for the seasons to be released on DVD, after which i can borrow them from the library). the new season will be its last, and i predict carrie mathison will not survive the finale or live happily ever after. she will become one of the anonymous stars at CIA headquarters. i look forward to finding out if i'm right.

* Claws. this weird and wacky ensemble dramedy about a florida nail salon and its ties to organized crime stars neicy nash, which is enough in and of itself. the fact that it's easily one of the strangest series on TV at the moment is a bonus, as is the amazing supporting cast.

there are others – limited series like The Sinner, which is excellent, or on-the-bubble series which i might drop, like The Good Fight (loved season one but have struggled to care since), or moronic fare like Ridiculousness (which i'm embarrassed to admit i can watch for hours) – that fill my to-watch list. and of course all the stuff on netflix, from Queer Eye to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt to OitNB. frankly, there's just too much good TV to watch.

and i'm always looking for something new and awesome.

which, i guess, is part of the reason it's been three days since my last entry on this blog. i am nothing if not a slave to mindless distraction. but, hopefully, good mindless distraction.

perimeno-pain-in-my-ass

let the record show: i can't wait to be done with perimenopause. i suspect it started, however quietly or subtly, several years ago but has stomped in like an exuberant high-school marching band – complete with the requisite out-of-control hormones – over the past 12 months.

thankfully, i've thus far been able to avoid hot flashes of any kind, so that's nice. but the other stuff?

i'm pretty sure my pal "peri" is responsible for, or at least contributed to, all my digestive woes of a couple of years back, when i would be hit with intense cycle-related abdominal pain and cramping once a month, post-period, like clockwork. myriad tests revealed absolutely nothing – my colon and abdomen and ovaries and everything else were A-OK – so it was chalked up to IBS. it all began during a ridiculously stressful time professionally, when i was working myself to death (so that helped, too, i'm sure), but didn't really let up once that stress went away. then, suddenly, it did. PHEW. it still flares up occasionally, but a lot less often. for now. thanks, wild and crazy hormonal imbalances!

speaking of periods: good grief. i used to be a well-oiled machine, with periods arriving right on schedule. i could predict their arrival with an impressive degree of accuracy, i knew how they'd play out, and when each one was done, it was done.

now? your guess is as good as mine. go ahead and throw a dart at a calendar – you have as good a shot as i do of getting it right! cycles range from 16 days (WTF?!) to – and, so far, this has only happened one blissful time – 56 days. oh, that was a good couple of months. the periods themselves might be four days, or seven, or five, or eight... starting slowly, then stopping outright (?!), then starting again. off and on. or just on. and on. being perpetually "prepared" for unexpected arrivals has likewise become hilarious. "is it now? no. oh, now? today? yes? wait. nope. or, hang on, YES. dammit! no."

most dramatically, i now choke up at just about everything. anything from a church hymn to a commercial to a TV show to a news story will now very easily elicit tears... even if there's nothing at all sad about what i'm reading, hearing or watching. it's like the same biological mechanisms that have thrown my hormones out of whack have also decided to pool their resources and go into hyperdrive when it comes to my weepiness threshold and my (ever-growing, apparently!) emotional triggers. this new ability to practically cry at will would be super-handy if i were an actor. but i'm not, so it's annoying.

which, i'm learning, is par for the course when it comes to perimenopause, i guess: changes that are, at times, funny... but annoying. onwards i go!

news & notes

• mom and i have started booking our annual jaunt to flo-rida. we've booked a flight down... but that's it so far. airfares have been insanely high since before christmas – we could fly to europe for less than a flight to tampa! – so we're waiting a bit longer to see if the cost of the return leg goes down. for now, our preferred condo remains available, but we'll need to book that soon, too, lest it get taken and we wind up with confirmed flights but nowhere to actually stay.

• on tuesday, i discovered that the self-absorbed asshat creative director who made my life and work very challenging – and who seemed to do the same for all his frustrated colleagues – while working on the photography magazine has left the company with whom we'd been working, rebranded himself a "brand-strategy consultant" and is taking full credit (on his fancy website) for the magazine *we* created. no mention of me, or anyone on the editorial/design team, or our content-marketing company... he's painted himself as a brilliant saviour when, in fact, the magazine performed much better and won awards BEFORE he ever signed on. during his tenure, it won nothing and eventually died. i really hope any of his potential new clients checks his references before hiring him. oh, how i would LOVE to be one of those references...

• right now, i'm in the middle of my annual health exams. doctor's check up last week, dentist appointment later this morning, blood work tomorrow, mammogram next week. i'm keeping all appendages crossed that everything everywhere is fine. this is always a stressful hurdle-like time of year as i wait and hope for the all-clear across the board.

the great – and probably unnecessary – shoe dilemma of 2019/2020

as many people know, i am frequently plagued with (by?) indecisiveness. this is especially true when it comes to shopping. for most things. unless i'm browsing at dollar tree, i will often weigh pros and cons ad infinitum before actually committing to a purchase. sometimes, my head will spin so much from the hemming and hawing and researching and reviewing that i end up completely inert, unable to make any decision, so i wind up doing nothing. buying nothing. (to be honest, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.)

one time, i read some advice on getting oneself out of such vortexes of perpetual hesitation and ovethinking: figure out your key criteria and ask yourself, "does this item meet all or most of those criteria?" if the answer is yes, just buy it and stop comparison shopping.

that's been somewhat useful and has come in handy multiple times since. it's taught me that sometimes i just need to yank off the bandaid and do it. if i realize afterward that whatever it is was a mistake, i can always return it. that, in turn, has allowed me to take some risks (which aren't actual risks – they just feel risky to me) with online purchases. stuff i haven't seen or felt or tried on in person because they're only available online.

some of those purchases have been fantastic – i scored three awesome pairs of insanely comfortable and functional thermal leggings for $7 each.

some have been unsuccessful – three times, i ordered zero-drop running shoes (not available to actually try on in any store anywhere in the toronto area) and had to return them because they didn't quite fit right or just didn't fit well enough that i could justify the cost of keeping them. for someone who walks as much as i do, finding great-quality, great-fitting shoes is very important. and as someone who's currently unemployed, i'd nonetheless also like them to be a good value. i don't mind spending a bit more, but i also have a mental threshhold beyond which i can't reasonably justify a shoe purchase.

that's how i arrived at the great shoe dilemma of 2019/2020... which has, as of today, stretched on for nearly three months. THREE MONTHS!

you see, back in november, i stumbled upon a stunningly gorgeous pair of merrell winter hiking boots. i found them completely by accident while looking for merrell running shoes, and was instantly smitten. they were SO pretty... so stylish... and so completely me. just LOOK at them!

i could totally see myself trekking all over the place with these pretty puppies, which are totally waterproof and filled with some kind of aerogel insulation developed by NASA, making them insanely lightweight. and my winter-hiking keens, which have served me well but are about 14 years old, are getting to the point that they should probably be retired. their treads have practically been worn bald, the seams are starting to split and the fabric in/around the boot shaft was worn away long ago.

but there were three big strikes against the beautiful new merrells:

1. they were only available online, so it would be impossible to try them on before buying

2. multiple online reviews cited a particularly painful spot in the boot around the inner ankles which caused 100% of those reviewers to return their purchases

and

3. these boots cost nearly $300. THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS! for a pair of hiking boots!

there was no way, at all, that i was going to spend that kind of money. period. BYE BOOTS!

top price limit for me for boots would be $150... and even that would be very hard to swallow. i'm a much bigger fan of the $75 and under price point.

as much as i tried to forget them, the boots haunted me. "just TRY us on... come on, we'll be great! you'll love us! just try..."

so, i figured i'd wait for black friday sales to see if the price dropped (it didn't). then i thought maybe the price would drop on boxing day... and it did, but only to $202 plus tax. an improvement, sure, but still a lot more than i'd feel comfortable paying. one store in toronto was clearing them for $150 (what?! where can i place my order?!), but only in a men's size 11 (oh), which is gigantic and, obviously, nowhere near what i need (NEVERMIND THEN).

since the end of december, i've been keeping an eye on those boots. waiting. hemming. hawing. reading online reviews. i even emailed merrell in the interim to see if they redesigned the boots to get rid of the ankle-spot issue, since the majority of reviews citing that problem were written during the 2018/2019 model year. (merrell responded that it was not a known issue, and didn't actually answer my question.)

at last check, and thanks to an online bonus discount, they were $182.67, before taxes. total with tax: $202.97. inching closer.

and here's the kicker to this whole dilemma: i'm not worried about ordering the boots, having them arrive and trying them on only to discover they fit poorly or cause ankle pain, meaning i'll have to schlep to a nearby store to return them. that's actually a really easy "problem" to solve.

no, i'm worried that they'll arrive, i'll try them on and they'll be perfect, and then i'll have to find a way to justify KEEPING them.

more news as it breaks.

roux-ed awakening

actual image of yesterday's fare

for a while now, i've had this idea in my head that i should find (and try) a homemade-mac-and-cheese recipe.

up until about a year ago, i was a fan of the classic kraft boxed mac and cheese – you know, the neon orange, made-of-chemicals stovetop concoction that takes all of about eight minutes to make. i'd had it since i was a kid, when my grandmother would make it for my dad. the best boxed mac and cheese was, hands down, catelli... but they stopped making it a long, long time ago, so i had to settle for kraft – or, as it's been rebranded in canada, "KD." not nearly as good (it's all about the cheese sauce), but certainly better than all the other brands i tried once catelli's mac and cheese went to the great, and ever-expanding, "vickie's favourite products which have now been discontinued" graveyard in the sky.

one box of KD usually yielded two very generous servings, as well, so it was also a very very cheap option for a pair of very filling meals. but then they changed the cheese-sauce recipe. WTF? and the new-recipe sauce tasted terrible.

it wasn't just a rogue dud box – i tried a few boxes over the course of several months and all delivered the same bizarrely flavoured sauce. i won't even get into what they did to the macaroni noodles, which used to be nicely al dente after seven minutes in boiling water but which suddenly turned to mush after about four. i assume it was the company's attempt at making the prep even faster for those on-the-go types. but i am not on the go. and i do not like mushy noodles.

so...

after a mac-and-cheese-free year or so, i started to really get a hankering for it and reasoned that a homemade version – created from some fabulously reviewed online recipe and devoid of chemical additives – would surely be better than KD v.2.0. i asked mom if she'd be up for trying our hands at a from-scratch batch, and she said yes.

at this time i feel it important to make a confession: before yesterday, i'd never had homemade mac and cheese. in fact, i'd only ever had boxed varieties. (let me know if you need the smelling salts.) and i don't like cream sauces. full stop. these two facts should have informed me how this story would likely turn out, but they did not. live and learn.

anyway...

i scoured the internet and browsed dozens of recipes and read a seemingly endless stream of user ratings and reviews. i found a recipe that sounded good, seemed fairly straightforward and had a couple hundred positive comments from people who'd tried it out. "this could be it," i thought. "this could be AMAZING." it had a variety of cheeses, a crunchy topping and it sounded perfect for a february afternoon. my expectations immediately became unrealistically high.

mom and i gathered our ingredients and met at her place yesterday, "family day" in ontario, to create cheesy, noodle-y greatness.

only... it was not great.

wait.

correction: *i* did not think it was great. both my parents LOVED it. my father, who almost never compliments a meal, said it was the best macaroni and cheese he's ever had. he even had two helpings! and mom was over the moon with how it turned out. she is a mac-and-cheese connoisseur and has fairly high standards, so she knows of what she raves.

but i could barely finish the small serving i took.

i found it bland and pasty, even though it was very gooey and creamy. to me, it tasted like pasta in a milky roux sauce with a hint of cheese. i did like the crispy seasoned-panko-breadcrumb topping, which i applied quite liberally before the whole thing went into the oven, but that was about it. if i had to choose between a box of KD v.2.0 and the homemade mac and cheese, i'd actually take the box.

and that's when i discovered i am not a gastronome. i am a gastronot. though i fancy myself a decidedly discerning dessert fan, when it comes to certain foods, i go low(brow). i like lardy slab cakes and hostess sno-balls and, apparently, neon-orange macaroni and cheese that comes in a box.

and, as long as mom and dad are relishing the bounty of the leftovers, i'm okay with that.

just a break in my stride

for better or worse, i like a routine. structure. and, when i'm on a roll, i'm pretty good at keeping things going – regular exercise, taking photos every day, practicing meditation each night. whatever. there's a part of my brain that thrives on seeing how long i can keep a streak going once it's underway.

but as soon as, for whatever reason, that streak breaks, i always find it surprisingly difficult to get it going again. "meh, i'll start again tomorrow..." starts to stretch day after day, until weeks have gone by and i realize that i haven't been doing that thing i'd been doing so regularly for so long.

so it is/was that this blog seemed to go on hiatus soon after i turned the lights back on in here. i thought i'd write somewhat regularly, even if it was only once a week, but that didn't happen. i sort of blame the flu, which knocked me off my game (and out of my routine) for a couple of weeks. i still forced myself (barely) to keep up the photo blog, but this one became a non-priority. "meh, i'll start again tomorrow..."

slowly, though, i'm getting back into the swing of things. i've pushed myself back into the groove of writing almost every day – i've been working on outlines for three different screenplays, ping-ponging between them whenever i hit a creative block in one of the stories. they're vastly different in tone and content: one's a magical-realism horror-comedy; one's a tech thriller; and one's a straight-out sports drama.

what i've started to realize is that writing anything begets more writing. when i force myself to sit down and write... ideas and stories bubble to the surface – usually in fragments, but still. and more than a few times, i've surprised myself. the more i focus on the stories or characters or ideas – or just writing itself – the clearer and stronger it all becomes. and then those ideas beget more ideas, and a fabulous, sometimes scary, snowball barrels down the hillside towards me.

all this to say: i'm starting a blogging "streak" today and will see how long i can keep it going.