Browsed by
Category: Main Blog

This is the main Blog category. Will change it once we’ve decided what categories Tara wants.

Don’t make decisions on perception

Don’t make decisions on perception

What I’m reading
• [Early Retirement] was not what I expected. Honestly, I have never loved the acronym FIRE (in my head it should be FIER, which is the French word for pride) but I don’t begrudge people using it. They know what it means to them. I prefer FI just because in the early 90s when I read Your Money or Your Life that is the term they used – and it is via FI that allowed me to stay home with my kids, start a business, go back to work etc.. But I absolutely LOATHE when bloggers nitpick about people saying they’ve achieved FIRE but they still work. It’s like when people say “dividend investing isn’t a thing.” Of course it is, people have defined their terms and so the clarity is there. Being pedantic about it is just weird.

• Yes, and… this reminds me of a meme I stole from the internet:

A lot of the “this is the worst of times” suffers from the knowledge of history. Being in the middle of WWII when things were absolutely dicey (most people don’t realize how close it was at one point) was horrific. But from our place in 2023 where the Allies won, it doesn’t seem so scary. Sure, things definitely feel pretty terrible right now but how much of it is real and how much of it is just perception? We spend so much time on our phones and as a result of that the algorithm feeds us things that confirm our perspectives because that content keeps our eyeballs on their ads. It makes us more fearful and makes us believe things are so much worse than they are. It reminds me of this Dara O’Briain bit from 2009:



The Economist published this fascinating chart recently about how the pandemic has broken people’s views on the economy. The economy in the US is actually doing well, but people don’t believe that it is. It’s the first time since they started tracking sentiment that there has been such a wide gap. I suspect a lot of that is due to how we are constantly being fed doom and gloom from various social media sites. They call it doomscrolling for a reason.

But even if you go back and read economic headlines from the past, the only way we really knew things were good or bad was in retrospect. 2010-2020 was unprecedented for growth but for a lot of that period there was a lot of doom and gloom predictions floating around. This is a very good reason to ignore the noise and just focus on your goals. If you had believed a lot of the advice from “experts” you would have made some terrible decisions. Just leaving your money in an index fund for the entirety of that decade would have made you a very rich person. Ignore, ignore, ignore. Trust the process. Stay the course.

Faith, Hope and Carnage (and alcohol)

Faith, Hope and Carnage (and alcohol)

Link
• Why are things so expensive in Canada?

• The New Escapologist on on a video of a video floating around about how 9-to-5 culture sucks. I was telling Mr. Tucker that in 2002 when I lived on one side of the city it took me 15-20 minutes to get to the other side of the city for work (by car). When I went back to work in 2012 it took me 45 minutes to get from one side of the city to downtown (by car). For most of 9-to-5 history, people lived close to work or within a reasonable commute. But cities haven’t been moving people as efficiently as they should be and now commutes are longer, traffic is worse and public transport is a farce.

Books & booze
I’ve been reading the book (or, really, the very long interview) Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Séan O’Hagan. I have been enjoying Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files quite a bit this year since discovering it so I figured it would be very similar. I was not wrong. It’s funny because I am very much goth-adjacent but have never really listened to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. So this week I am changing that and going back and listening to some. I find it very strange that I didn’t listen to this in the 90s but I suppose we can’t know or experience everything.

I didn’t know anything about journalist, Séan O’Hagan but it’s clear that these two men have known each other for awhile. So when I googled him, I came across this piece he did for The Guardian in 2002: I Can See Clearly Now. I don’t know if it is serendipity or the universe colluding to send me love letters for change or what but Mr. Tucker and I had justjust been discussing making 2024 another sober year.

For some background, like other people we started the pandemic in 2020 by increasing our alcohol intake substantially. Having a backyard with a pool makes it also very easy to slip into long, leisurely summer days of floating on top of the water with a drink – especially when there is no where to go and nothing to do. By the fall however, it had become abundantly clear that we were spending a lot of time and money on alcohol. So on Halloween night 2020 we quit alcohol for a year.

Like O’Hagan, quitting alcohol wasn’t as much of a worry as I thought it would be. I braced myself for the need to sooth with alcohol and I just didn’t have as bad of an experience as I had been anticipating. There were some difficult moments – specifically when we rented cottages on Manitoulin Island with two other families – but they passed quickly. But of course at my friend A’s birthday party on Halloween 2021, I was back in the cups.

Honestly, I have never gone back to my previous levels of alcohol consumption. Since then I have been more of a sporadic and not habitual user. It’s been a bit weird because I can’t tease out whether or not it is because alcohol really affects my PLS or if I just have naturally gravitated away from the stressful years where I used alcohol as a crutch? Maybe both? The pandemic definitely eliminated a lot of stressful elements from our lives after we got over the initial stress of being in a global pandemic. We no longer hosted elaborate holiday meals no one appreciated (but felt obligated to attend). Holidays became joyous, small affairs. We no longer had to rush around from activity to activity for the kids or entertain people who imposed their unwanted, judgement-filled visits on us. The last stressors we truly have that are weighty at the moment are the condo and Mr. Tucker’s job – and getting rid of one means we will get rid of the other!

[I was going to opine here about how sobriety culture is now replacing wine mom culture it seems but I feel like that would be a distraction. Perhaps a post for another day but in general, alcohol is most certainly poison but so are a lot of things. Having said that, sobriety has zero risks aside from being pegged as not fun at parties]

At any rate, it’s interesting that Mr. Tucker and I have always jived when it comes to our behaviour – both good and bad. So it isn’t surprising that we are matched in our current alcohol consumption. Since 2024 will be the year we a> take up gaming again; b> he will hopefully retire it will be interesting to see how that changes many things in our lives. Until then, we head into the holiday season with a budget for some celebratory drinks.

Life update: Christmas, condo & the Youngest pondering high school

Life update: Christmas, condo & the Youngest pondering high school

Links
• Used wisely, carefully: a bit of a bad thing can be good

• Great tools for Canadians from TriDelta determine the value of your final estate and the donation planner.

• Three ways to build wealth with dividend investing (TD Bank video). I follow all three of these speakers online even though they all have different styles of building wealth. In fact, I follow a lot of people – even people I vehemently disagree with – because I feel like it’s important to challenge your own assumptions.

• Disengage: Modern life subjects us to all-consuming demands. That’s why we should reflect on what it means to step away from it all.

• Moneysense magazine did a poll about the worst money advice and these are the (fascinating and unsurprising) results.

• A fantastic read. The Snack Cake Economy: how I learned about money in prison.

• Retirees tend to be happier even if their finances aren’t great.

A life update
In an effort to rein in our spending we took stock of all the food we have in our pantry and freezers and plan to budget a minimal amount for food this month with no eating out. Our CSA dropped our last basket off two weeks ago and so we do need a few fruits and vegetables as well as a few staples. Otherwise, we are trying to work with what we already have.

The Youngest and Mr. Tucker went to an information night for a specialty high school in the area and they came home eager to do an application! I was pleasantly surprised when they sent it to me via email to edit and give them feedback. The application process opens soon and so I am happy to see that they are taking it seriously. Apparently they took 58 students (plus 20 on the waitlist) into the program last year but had 120 applications total. It’s an almost 50% acceptance rate so if they work hard I am sure they will have a shot. So cross all of your fingers for my kid, please!

Condo
I was joking with the Americans* in the group chat that the condo situation feels cursed and that I need to hire someone to sage the place. Every time we get close to the end, another thing blindsides us. On Friday Mr. Tucker went to finish things up only to lose a FOB in the parking brake of the car and then got stuck in a work emergency. So he ended spending most of the time there on a call.

We went to buy appliances only to discover that one elevator was down so that we couldn’t book one to get the appliances upstairs. So now that we are nearing the end I have so much trepidation about what new and exciting derailment is going to happen? We’re trying to stay positive but man it feels like every time we get closer to the end, we get tripped up.

We ended up researching appliances last night and plan to head out and buy them this week and have them delivered on a day that Mr. Tucker books off (see story below!). We will get those in, stage that place and then throw it up on the market as soon as we can. Mr. Tucker – who has absolutely zero faith in the unseen/unknown/spiritual said to me today, “I really hope that whatever the universe is playing at, it’s playing at because it is helping us with the timing of selling the condo.” I honestly hope so as well!

The series of unfortunate events that have delayed the renovations and caused us so much time and given us so much anxiety has done one thing for me: it’s lessoned my nostalgia. I used to hem and haw over selling it vs. renting it out and now I just want it gone. It’s been an anchor on our time, our energy and our finances and it is 100% time to move on from this phase of our lives. So I’m thankful for small miracles, I suppose.

The Holidays are upon us
Last week was used book Advent Calendar day! It’s one of my favourite days of the year and since it is so popular you need to get there early to queue up if you want some good ones. A local bookstore spends a lot of time wrapping up 24 books and packaging them by language, age, genre, media (comic/dvd etc.) I made Mr. Tucker take the afternoon off work this year because last year he did not and of course it was chaos. Last year, I was left scrambling trying to manage the weight of the books while he stood outside in the parking lot on a work call, balancing his laptop in his hands. We vowed never again! It’s actually become a bit of a family joke that when he says the words, “Oh it’s pretty dead at work today, I will just hop out to do X…” all hell breaks loose at work and he’s stuck managing a crisis.

Well not this year!

This year I had him take the afternoon off and the book adventure was smooth sailing. We then hit IKEA because I love their Christmas paper shop and we needed a few extra tubes for this year. I had wanted to hit the cafeteria for lunch but unfortunately we had a delivery arrive of computer components and we didn’t want to leave them sitting out on our porch for too long. Still, it was a productive day.

I know people hate me for it but I generally do all of my Christmas shopping at the start of November. In fact, aside from a few small things for stockings I am pretty much done. I just generally love the fall and early winter between Samhain and the Winter Solstice/Yule that I don’t want to spend it worrying about shopping. I also learned the hard way that a lot of things can sell out very quickly. For example, The Eldest wanted a specific Advent Calendar this year and by the time I got around to ordering it, it was sold out! I managed to find it on another website so crisis averted but had I waited she would have been sorely disappointed. Yes, if you are sensing a theme: we love Advent Calendars more than actual Christmas gifts so we tend to spend more of our money there.

When life was busier and our minds were more chaotic I would wait until Christmas Eve where Mr. Tucker and I would get drunk, throw on the The Vinyl Café Christmas collection and get wrapping! But an older and wiser me has decided to instead do a bit of wrapping during the daytime when the kids are in school. It worked out really well last year and I managed to get it all done by December 1st. That way I managed to enjoy the crafting and friend and family get-togethers during the month without stressing about all of the other drama. December is also my birthday month so I spent a lot of years not celebrating because it was just too much to add yet another task to the list. Now that I have a handle on the season I do plan a nice dinner with the family this year, which will be a lovely break from our normal routine.

*These are my Americans, get your own

People like good news about their bad decisions

People like good news about their bad decisions

Links
• I absolutely adore Katherine May’s books and have bought myself a copy of Wintering to re-read during the dark days ahead. Her newsletter is a lovely read about how to feel grounded in turbulent times.

• I’ve long been a big fan of alternative housing which is funny for someone for whom accessibility is a top concern. Still, this is a good piece about living on a boat. I wish it was more of a choice for many people

• Which cities have bubble risk in their property markets?

• A dollar is a medium of exchange, not a store of value. Some great points here!

• A great non-fiction-ish short story on the real costs of inflation in business and life.

People love good news about their bad decisions
This is why things like Girl Math and Little Treat culture gain traction on TikTok and other social media sites. It feels good to get confirmation that your decisions are in line with the decisions of others. We are, after all, a tribal species.

Unfortunately though, all of these videos and commentary from influencers has very little application to your own personal situation. As the adage goes in personal finance: the only person who cares about your money is you. It doesn’t matter how many videos you watch extoling the virtues of getting a “little treat” in the form of an $8 latte a day if you are miserable because you are sinking in debt – and you don’t even enjoy the latte that much. You need to take a look at your own situation and decide whether or not certain things have value and make you happy. Ignore the noise from the internet telling you that you can ignore any purchase under $5. It’s just “girl math!” What they aren’t telling you is that $5 once a day is $150 a month.

I think the challenge is when a treat becomes, over time, a habit. No one can decide that line for you but if you truly enjoy eating lunch out every day to the tune of $15 a day, then that is probably something you can decide to keep. But if it means you’re upset that can’t afford to go to a fancy dinner with friends because you’ve blown all of your spending money, then maybe review that habit. It’s on you to make those choices and no one else can make them for you.

Yes, there are systemic challenges that are happening and we should all be pushing for change. There is a housing crisis, a recession looming, pensions have gone the way of the Dodo and it can be easy to throw up your hands and say, “screw it, I am going to make myself happy today.” If you choose to do that, who am I to stop you? It’s your life. I am not going to judge. In fact, I don’t care at all. The only person who cares about your money is you.

I see so many people bemoaning standard personal finance advice,

“That wouldn’t work for me!”
“I don’t want to give up my lifestyle!”
“I need X!”
“That sounds like deprivation to me!”
“We need two cars!”
“I can’t eat leftovers!”
“I deserve this for working so hard!”
“Why bother saving, I’ll never be able to afford to buy a house/go on vacation/retire.”

You know what? You are absolutely right. Please carry on.

Do you think Dave Bach or Suze Orman give two shits about what you do with your money? No. They’re busy rolling around in the piles of cash because they’ve been on the personal finance scene for forever and a day spitting out books, getting speaking gigs, plying their trade. All your criticism of typical advice to get your financial affairs in order doesn’t matter one bit. The truth is, it’s very basic and it works. The info they’re peddling isn’t even new or revelational: they are saying the same stuff that you can read on the internet for free any day of the week.

Pay off your debt.
Live below your means.
Save the rest.
Have money in the bank for emergencies.
Save money and invest it long term.

You can bitch and moan all you want that it’s hard, or that you feel judged or that it doesn’t leave you much room for fun things but all it is, is information. You can ignore this information, or you can use it as a springboard to change your life. No one else cares.

Cashless society?

Cashless society?

Our city was a test city for Interac ETF/POS transactions in the 1990s so I remember using debit machines at a very young age. Of course, cashless payments have become king since the pandemic and my children always want their allowances in e-transfer rather than cash.

Over the past few years are city has been hit with weather events that have caused multi-day outages. This has prompted us to buy a generator, solar chargers for devices, and to plan better for what seems to be a yearly inevitability. When the Derecho hit last year, we were in Toronto and when we were driving back home my family texted me to remind me to a> fill up the car on the way back because many gas stations were closed & the others either had long lines or were out of fuel; b> get out some cash because at many places, debit was down as well. To this day we try to keep some cash in the house in order to weather a multi-day outage.

Astute readers will know that I got on the internet about 2-3 years after the debit pilot started here. So I am firmly emmeshed in the great technological future and have been since I was a teenager. But recently I came across Brett Scott’s Altered States of Money Consciousness blog and it’s giving me pause. While I do enjoy having the benefits of technology for many of my financial transactions, I also think we should be wary of eliminating cash completely. I highly recommend the piece 10 reasons to fight a cashless society.

Hope your Wednesday is lovely and that your pillow sacks are plump from last night’s trick-or-treating! I always let my kids stay home the day after Halloween. So they are sleeping off their sugar crashes.

Spooky October expenses

Spooky October expenses

Happy Halloween/Samhain! It is my favourite holiday of the year and while we haven’t done as much this month as we typically do, I am still thrilled that we got to decorate & carve pumpkins and that the kids will be going trick-or-treating tonight in the neighbourhood. The Youngest has friends coming for dinner and I completely regret telling everyone that we would order pizza. I looked at our expenses in October yesterday and BIG YIKES: what a nightmare!

We spent 3x what I wanted to spend last month – most of it going towards the condo costs/renovation…and we haven’t even purchased the appliances yet! I am so angry and demoralized about the entire thing and every time we go to push forward on the final touches, something happens. When Mr. Tucker had a free weekend, someone was parking in our parking spot. Now that we are in the process of buying the appliances, one of the elevators in the building is down so we can’t book an elevator to get the appliances upstairs. It feels like everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

I hope this is one of the things that feels hilarious in retrospect but right now I am not feeling it at ALL.

The only silver lining right now is that Mr. Tucker’s bonus was twice as much as we had anticipated, which is a relief. It means we can set aside even more money for investing and to pay off our winter trip this year.

(HAH, I just realized that I have Thanksgiving on their twice, well, just add them and that it close.)

That condo percentage is killing me! I am pretty shocked at our restaurant and alcohol consumption expenses as well. But knowledge is power and hopefully soon we can get it all done and on the market so that we can work on other projects around the house that need to get done.

Since it is bound to be a late night, I am going to try and see if I can sneak a nap in before the kids get home. They will all be hyper and excited to get out the door for trick-or-treating so I want to make sure I am well rested before the onslaught of children.

Monday link post and mourning

Monday link post and mourning

• TL;DR continues to be my favourite weekly financial newsletter. They do such a great job.
• TFSAs limit is $7000 in 2024 and the OAS clawback goes up.
• In praise of slowness in life and investing.
• [T]he “silent walk” movement is essentially Gen Z’s discovery of inner monologue as an alternative to constant electronic entertainment. How to make your mind quieter.
• A surprisingly radical proposal: make people happier – not just wealthier and healthier.

Sadly, my husband’s biological sister lost her 25-year-old son yesterday. I’ll be back tomorrow with other things. Today is just a sad day.

On the dark unfairness of life

On the dark unfairness of life

(instead of A Jot A Day, you get this)


The Wheel of Fortune

When I first let people know my diagnosis, I had a very morbid thought: some of the people who were responding to me with kind messages of support may actually die before me. They may also become disabled. They may also have their lives rocked by an untreatable illness or major accident.

Of course, that prediction has come true. But I wasn’t particularly prescient: the wheel of fortune goes up and the wheel of fortune goes down. Whether or not you are a pauper or a king, death comes for us all.

Thankfully our brains are really good at shielding us from the inevitable. Most healthy adults don’t walk around constantly worrying about death. But when tragedy strikes it comes to the forefront of all of our minds and we are confronted by the reality that life is profoundly unfair.

We think that we will stave off the reaper by eating well, exercising, and practicing mindfulness. We take vitamins, get enough sleep and drink a lot of water. We hope that it is enough so that we can live a long, healthy life. Indeed, it is definitely the smart thing to do for sure: a healthy lifestyle is a great way to extend what Dr. Peter Attia calls “healthspan.” We all should definitely be doing as many right things as possible. But as much as we believe in the Just World Hypothesis – that the world is fair and we will be either punished or rewarded for our behaviour – it’s just not true. The universe is a random, chaotic place full of unknowns.

We can do all of the right things and hedge our bets thinking we will come out ahead – or at least come out even. But the house ALWAYS wins.

I don’t know if I mentioned it but Mr. Tucker is adopted. Because the universe seems to have a sense of humour, I actually went to high school with two of his biological sisters. Having them in our life feels natural even though we haven’t been able to spend a lot of time together since covid. They are very special, wonderful people.

Unfortunately, one of his sisters has a 25-year-old son who is very sick with an incredibly rare type of cancer. Although he has done all the right things, it has been abundantly clear that he is in his final days. It is profoundly unfair that this should happen to someone so young. He has two younger sisters who are still under 18 and the entire family is just in crisis right now. I cannot think of a more profoundly horrific experience as a mother than to watch your child slowly die…and there is nothing you can do.

My mother always used to say two things, “don’t wish your life away,” for when someone is impatient for the future and “old age is a luxury afforded to too few,” for when someone complains about the aging process. I feel these two things profoundly today as I think of them all at the hospital, eking out what last moments they can steal from death.

Life isn’t fair. We know it as a platitude and we know it as a truth. We pretend it is because it protects our mental health and allows us to go forward and live our lives. It gives us a sense of agency that we know intellectually we do not have. “When your times up, your time’s up” is another one of my mother’s favourite sayings. For some people it scares them: stay inside! Don’t take risks! Don’t endanger your life or security! For others that saying invokes the opposite response: go outside! Take as many risks as you can! Live life to the fullest!

For most of us, life is lived in the in-between spaces. The moments we steal between work and responsibility. The moments we get with our family and friends, to work on our hobbies or to do the activities we enjoy. The risks we take or don’t take depending on our temperaments, our financial situations and where we live and work. If I have one defining poem that I keep coming back to since my diagnosis it is Mary Oliver’s, The Summer Day:

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

– Mary Oliver

Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?

A jot a day: Thursday, October 26th, 2023

A jot a day: Thursday, October 26th, 2023

Links
• I want to say I called it but TBQH it was the most likely scenario. BoC keeps prime rate at 5%.
• Food Bank usage is highest it has ever been since we started tracking it in 1989.
• Did the baby boomers ruin the housing market? while this is a US piece, it is also true for Canada. Governments got out of the affordable housing game 30 years ago but it’s biting us in the ass now. Combine that with Boomers whose wealth is mostly contained in their primary residences and you have a perfect storm. Governments need to act now to make housing a priority but don’t want to upset Boomer voters who may see their house values decline when more housing floods the market. Nightmare scenario.

Today
The pharmacy I had booked our vaccinations with canceled our appointments so we pulled the kids out of school this morning and hit a walk-in. We were first, which was nice, but it still took awhile.

I also forgot to update all of our investments yesterday. I usually note all totals in our accounts once a month on the 25th. I do that just to make sure that we are on track and to note any trends.

I have a longer piece I plan to post soon but I also have a doctor’s appointment and some other chores to manage.

13 days of Halloween movies

When I chose this movie I had no idea that it was set in Calgary. When they said the name of the city the entire family SCREAMED! I guess we are all used to not having movies based in Canadian cities, let alone one that isn’t Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver. Of course, I am talking about the Clive Barker classic, Nightbreed.

The Youngest:7/10 Kinda long and the cops were freakin crazy and just seemed like dumb people running around being dumb.

The Eldest: 6/10 It was alright (from the parts I saw before I fell asleep). Nothing too special imo.

Mr. Tucker: 4/10 Not even half as good as I remembered. The whole movie is a lot of quantity over quality. Although the Alberta redneck army was amusing. Clive Barker is not a good director and David Cronenberg is not a great actor.

Honestly, I was overcome by a flood of nostalgia for the 90s. Even though I hadn’t actually watched it in the 90s the vibe was too real. Was it a fantastic watch? No. Was I surprised that David Cronenberg was such a fantastic actor (I disagree wholeheartedly with Mr. Tucker!)? Most definitely yes. It also made me realize that I hadn’t heard much about Clive Barker SINCE the 90s. Then I ended up going down a wiki spiral of authors I used to love in my teens and 20s…since we have all been there, I will save you the detailed discussion!

Happy Thursday!

A jot a day – second week edition – Wednesday, October 25th, 2023

A jot a day – second week edition – Wednesday, October 25th, 2023

Links
A More Perfect Union has a short video on how medical insurers in the US use prior authorization to deny patients the care that they’re entitled to – and people are dying. A friend of mine who works for a large tech company tells me that they have an entire team who advocate on behalf of the employees with their medical insurance company. It seems so incredibly complicated and expensive but alas, not illegal.

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI.

DYK: you can usually get your credit score for free through most major Canadian banks? I learned this because I had to set up an electricity account for the condo with a new company. They said they’d wave the $100 holding fee if I could prove I had a credit score of 700 or higher. That lead me to google it and sure enough, my bank gave me a free credit score. Of course, you are still entitled to one free credit report a year by law but this was a quick way to get the score without paying. I almost never check my score because I rarely need credit so that was good to learn.

In a MOOD
Since my surgery I have been trying to track my moods as an attempt to manage my hormonal cycle – without the obvious way of tracking a hormonal cycle. A friend of mine on facebook yesterday posted a Grampa Simpson meme to the article on influencers I posted which lead to a discussion about how I have been in a *mood* this week.

Fair enough! I do feel a bit more cranky than usual so perhaps it’s best to cut this short.

So instead I give you my 233 song, 14 ½ hour’s worth of Halloween music playlist. It is a labour of love and I am continually adding to it. Are some of the songs only tangently related? Yes. But never mind that…

And of course…

13 Days of Halloween Movies
To recap what this is: when the pandemic hit our kids were 10 and 12 and in their prime trick-or-treating years. It made me sad that they couldn’t do the more traditional neighbourhood jaunt so instead we created a new ritual: 13 days of Halloween movies. We chose 13 movies to watch in the days leading up to Halloween and we bought them each some typical Halloween candy to enjoy while we were watching them. I also posted their reviews to each movie online with a picture of the movie poster and friends and family told me that they really enjoyed the reviews and that they looked forward to them. So even though they’ve gone trick-or-treating since then, it’s a ritual we have continued – with less candy.

Today’s movie is Psycho! An absolute classic, it’s also a movie I hadn’t seen.

The Eldest: 7/10 it was a good story and it looks amazing considering it was filmed in the 60s. It is a slow burn, making the movie seem like it’s 3 hours long but overall good.

The Youngest: 7/10 It was old and the murder was kind of weirdly done (ik it was 1960) but I liked how it was done.

Mr. Tucker: 10/10 I mean, it’s Psycho.

Honestly, Psycho is – as the kids would say – a vibe. It’s designed for suspense, the music is ingrained in our culture and of course there is the classic shower scene. Alas, it is really long for modern attention spans. It’s so bonkers to me that so much has changed in technology in 60 years that long scenes and no cuts or camera movements makes the film seem boring. I definitely noticed myself and so the kids were probably in agony.

I did learn something interesting though! In the movie the Private Detective keeps getting out of the car via the passenger side. This confused me so I googled it and two things came up; 1 – it was the recommended way to get out of a car in the 60s because it was safer. Since bench seats were standard, it was easier to slide over. 1 – Filming someone going out the other side vs. walking around the car could shave off 3-4 seconds AND Hitchcock preferred to keep the entire scene in one frame, with no camera movements. So that’s a thing you now know too!

Happy Wednesday!