A jot a day: Wednesday, October 18, 2023

A jot a day: Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Some links

• I loved this article on creativity so much that I have kept a window open on my phone to post about it. The one thing I read over and over from creatives is: just do it and the inspiration will come. I am trying to do that by writing here every day this week.
• Tech doesn’t make our lives easier, it makes it faster “We don’t just live in any economy. We live in a mega-scale corporate capitalist economy, and in such a setting technology is never used to save time. It’s used to speed up production and consumption in order to expand the system. The basic rule is this: technology doesn’t make our lives easier. It makes them faster and more crammed with stuff.” (via: Apex Money) I saw a quote recently on AI that said something like, “If you won’t bother to write it yourself, I’m not going to bother to read it myself.”
• I also had a link to Unbound books open. It’s a publisher that publishes crowdsourced books. I love the idea.
• Shrinkflation continues to be an issue. Honestly, it would be interesting to see if standardization of what constitutes a “family size” or “club pack” would help here. But you just have to look at the Sisyphean task of trying to compare toilet paper packages to know what a fool’s errand it all is.
• How to Avoid Tax on Severance Pay in Canada
• Today is the Canadian Financial Summit. It’s got a nice selection of interesting speakers (and some I don’t like at all) and topics. You can get a “free” ticket right from the website.

QOTD

I’m old enough to remember when the Internet wasn’t a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four.
– Tom Eastman

This one hurt: I remember seeing a tweet where someone was saying that they don’t watch videos on TikTok but wait until they appear on Instagram…like an adult! It’s so meta that I saw that tweet discussing a TikTok video…on Instagram. Recently, I have been served up a ton of Reddit posts on Instagram as well, which is why this quote shook me to my core. I am constantly battling with myself over my (even) meagre presence on social media.

Books

I finished The Art of the Good Life and I can’t say I recommend it. Sometimes when I read a book I feel discomforted because the content doesn’t line up with what I believe so I take the time to process it so that I can either change my mind and add the perspective to my thoughts on the issue. Other times when I read a book I feel discomforted but continue to read because I feel like the book is a weak attempt at pushing someone’s beliefs and/or politics on me.

With a book like this which is a series of observations it had both levels of discomfort in it which makes it hard to review as a whole. While I want to review it more in-depth at some point my overall conclusion is that this is just another piece of #FinBro hot takes that really only seem to apply to rich white capitalists.

What I liked about it is that he starts the chapters with storytelling, which makes it highly readable and interesting. Humans are designed for storytelling, afterall. He has some interesting observations and enjoys quoting famous people (I am a sucker for quotes). He also has some good actionable advice, such as in the “Managing Expectations” chapter, and I do love the idea of subtraction being the key to appreciating what you have.

What gets confusing is his hero worship on the one hand (Munger, Gates and Buffet make multiple appearances) and then on the other he states that we shouldn’t put people on a pedestal because their innovations would happen regardless of their existence. He also seems to think that he is singlehandedly bringing back Stoicism into the modern world when in fact it’s been the dominant philosophical thinking of the 2010s in the blogosphere. It’s very odd that he thinks that it’s fallen out of fashion when clearly it has been very much in fashion.

I wish his editors had done a better job because this book is rife with contradictions such as we should definitely study marginalized people and their history but that we shouldn’t make it our focus. When I finally got 48 – The Secretary Problem, I basically just disengaged. Here is how the chapter starts:

Let’s say you want to hire a secretary (sorry: PAs). A hundred women have applied for the role, and you are interviewing them one by one in random order…

He then goes on to use gender-neutral language for the rest of this story about how to hire candidates efficiently using math. I just found that lede so antagonizing: the only reason to say that the candidates were women and to make a snarky comment about PAs wanting to be respected. It was just such an odd thing to do when their gender had absolutely nothing to do with the problem at hand.

While there is a notes section I find a lot of his arguments aren’t really arguments at all. I wish he had more references to back up his points but if we look at it as a purely opinion piece, sure, it works.

When I first picked it up I thought that it may be a book to add to my collection permanently because it had some salient points. But it starts to go off the rails and becomes a bit hypocritical part way through. In the end, what reading this book has taught me is that I really need to take notes about where I get my book recommendations from! I can’t remember what blog recommended it but I wish I did because that would tell me more about how to see their recommendations going forward.

Today

I slept horribly last night which means that today will probably will find me sitting in my living room watching episodes of Golden Girls. I am on my second cup of coffee and I am still super sleepy so I don’t see myself doing much today.

#13DaysOfHalloweenMovies

We ended up watching Death Becomes Her which has a hugely star-studded cast for this type of movie, which is probably due to the director.

The Youngest: 10/10 Literally perfect. Funny, goofy and I love how it was done.

The Eldest: 9/10 It was hilarious and very fun. I thought it was pretty creative.

Mr. Tucker: 7/10 Pretty sure I saw it when it came out but I can’t remember. Anyway, it was thoroughly enjoyable in that early 90s fun, yet thin plot and primitive CGI kind of way.

As for me? I enjoyed it although as I mentioned it was strange to see so many A-listers in what is a campy horror/comedy. It really brought me back to the days where the newspaper had two full pages of movie listings – remember they would say things like, “40 WEEKS IN THE THEATRE!” because the amount of time it ran was determined to be a measure of how great the fil was? I really miss the days of studios taking chances on weird and novel scripts. It feels like everything that hits the theatres now are remakes or superhero movies with the odd art house film breaking through. I get why they do it: why take a loss on something new when we can just do another Star Wars spinoff? But I feel like we have lost something culturally because of it.

Also, I am old: get off of my lawn!

Happy Wednesday, I hope you are having a great day!

A jot a day: Tuesday, October 17, 2023

A jot a day: Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Canadian inflation is down this month. So I am crossing my fingers for no rate hikes.

Canadian rent prices in the past 30 years. I am always wary when people put Ottawa and Gatineau together. There are really big differences between those two cities even though they are geographically correlated. They are two entirely different provinces with the QC side being much, much, much cheaper for real estate but much higher in income taxes.

I will always read anything Morgan Housel writes: A few laws about getting rich. (I am working on a post about found vs. earned wealth, for…someday)

I enjoyed The road to self-renewal that Apex Money posted. There is a lot of great wisdom there.

Procrastination. This really speaks to me as I was saying to Mr. Tucker (in response to this Instagram post) as someone who has been on the internet for 30 years I would say that around 2005-2007 are the years where the internet peaked. There was still eBay and livejournal but no smartphones making you available 24-7 and no social media (yes, it was my career but as I have mentioned repeatedly, when I retired the first thing I got rid of was twitter). “…Jefferies economist David Zervos had a really cool theory about technology and social media: he said that in the early days of the internet, we had a huge productivity boom (Look! I can order these plane tickets online!), and as the internet progressed, and social media appeared on the scene, then the internet became a huge productivity suck, as people spend hours and hours doomscrolling and looking at 49 photos of Fun Dinner at Pam’s.”

I think yesterday was the first day post-surgery that I felt really good & was able to bend over for long periods of time. Healing is definitely a process and I am always shocked when I read about people heading back to work at two weeks post-surgery. To be fair, in 2016 when I had neurosurgery booked AND broke my ankle 3 days beforehand (leading to two surgeries in 3 days) I went back to work within two weeks (from home) and within a month was getting Mr. Tucker to bring me downtown in my wheelchair to work half days in the office, half days from home. Looking back, that was a completely BONKERS thing to do given how much I had been through but it also explains why the next two years were an absolute nightmare, health-wise, for me. We were under so much stress from 2016-2018 that my final diagnosis was almost a relief because I could go on EI and apply for short-term disability. Finally, a break!

The problem is that in our modern world doesn’t allow for the realities of illness. I read Ask a Manager daily and I am always shocked when there are stories of people with terminal illnesses at work despite being severely ill. It breaks my heart because if they don’t work, they don’t keep their medical benefits. When I read supposed “heartwarming” stories of people who have donated their PTO so a colleague with a grave illness can take time off I am horrified. Is this the best we can do in 2023? Hustle until you die?

One of the things I have noticed about the FIRE movement is that the US version is way different than the rest of the world’s. I read things like The New Escapologist and The Idler and it is more philosophy than practicality. US writers are more focused on money because they have to be. The rest of the west has a plethora of safety nets that the US hasn’t historically had. With the ACA it has become much better but it is still super expensive. There are a lot more variables to account for. It makes sense that most advice is more practical in nature because it has to be, there are a lot more pieces on the chessboard. I am open to being wrong about this though, it is – admittedly – a small sample size.

Mr. Tucker is struggling at work lately and I suspect it is because he is >this close< to being able to retire. I played with the numbers though and without selling the condo, we can’t manage it. We can definitely live off of my income and our investments but not with the mortgage/condo fees/insurance still on the books. So it’s not what the sale will put IN our coffers so much as what it is NOT taking out of our monthly budget. It’s frustrating when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel but you know there is still a little ways to go until you get there.

The #13DaysOfHalloweenMovies2023 movie for today will be The Last Voyage of the Demeter. WARNING: SPOILERS AHOY

The trailer looked good and it is a movie from this year, so I figured we’d throw it on the list. So what did everybody think?

The Eldest: 8/10 It was good but the end sucked. Wasn’t very scary, but still enjoyable.

The Youngest: 7/10 I liked it but it dragged on, like Dad said last night. 45 minutes too long – it was only 10 pages 😢 (note: in the actual book, which the youngest has read)

Mr. Tucker: Two hours of guys walking around a ship’s topside yelling if anyone is there, then dying. Then they find Dracula’s coffin and do nothing. Movie was easily 45 mins too long.

I do like stories that branch off from the original (à la Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) that gives us a side quest from the main story. But with the Demeter we already know from the original story that the crew is all dead. It’s right there in the book and the first five minutes of the story reiterates that. So all that is left is to really see the story of how they died, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising is the canyon-esque plot holes. It’s very strange that they a> see two infected people burn up in the sun; b> have the main character and the woman find Dracula’s “sleeping” place and then…just leave it? And not tell anyone? Has no one put two-and-two together and maybe thought of moving the coffin to the deck in daylight? I don’t mind stories where we know the ending but the actual plot has to be decent. What it is even more weird is the ending had a bit of a cliff-hanger and wow do we ever not need a sequel.

That’s it for today’s random thoughts! Have a great Tuesday!

A jot a day: Monday, Rocktober 16th, 2023

A jot a day: Monday, Rocktober 16th, 2023

I have long neglected writing on any sort of cohesive schedule so I thought I would jot dot down my thoughts on every weekday this week. While I don’t typically edit my blog posts aside from grammar and spelling, these may be even worse. The point is to just get some day-in-the-life thoughts out there.

Things I read this morning
• The October update from The New Escapeologist.
• Why you should invest in yourself by Tawcan.
• Invest in the index, not individual stocks.
• Every Monday Wealthsimple sends out a newsletter called TL;DR which is a fun little round-up of financial news from last week. It is truly a fun read to wake up to on Monday morning.

Books I am currently reading
• Non-Fiction: The Art of the Good Life: 52 surprising shortcuts to happiness, wealth, and success by Rolf Dobelli.
• Fiction: VenCo by Cherie Dimaline

I suspect that I will be reading these books for the rest of the week at least. As usual, my library pile continues to explode upwards.

The weekend

The painting in the condo was finally completely to our satisfaction. Last week the painter said he was done and it was horrible: no baseboards or ledges done, paint drips down the wall, doors not painted. Again, another nightmare to add to the pile of the nightmare condo project. So Mr. Tucker followed up and he redid it. Apparently it looks passable so now we move onto buying appliances and finishing some of the fixes for the laminate floors. I feel like we may never get this condo on the market! Maybe come October 25th the Bank of Canada will raise the rates again and it will be even worse. I am crossing my fingers for it staying right where it is.

Friday night Mr. Tucker took the Eldest and 4 of her friends out to a local farm to do their haunted hayride & haunted houses. They then all came here for a sleepover and Mr. Tucker made them all homemade crepes with local maple syrup for breakfast. Typically, the Eldest doesn’t want a birthday party so we have decided to pay for her and her friends to do this in October. We are, afterall, SUPER into Halloween around these parts so it makes more sense to just do this in the fall than to have something in the spring that she feels lackluster about. Unfortunately, the Youngest also had a last-minute costume party because it meant Mr. Tucker and I couldn’t make an appearance at our friend’s last-of-the-year backyard hangout. October is always busy and even though I have planned less official outings it’s still pure chaos some weekends.

We buy all of our chickens for the year from a local farmer in the area. Typically, Mr. Tucker goes day-of to get them whole/fresh and then he processes them himself. One evening of work means we have meals for the entire year. It also means that we end up with a pile of bones that we freeze so that we can make chicken stock when we get to it. A glut of celery and carrots in our CSA combined with the crisp fall weather meant that yesterday we ended up making a huge batch of chicken stock. Just in time for soup season!

The kids managed to harvest the rest of the garden yesterday – mostly tomatoes and peppers – and then tore it all out. I had such high hopes for our garden this year! It was also an amazing year for tomatoes which we couldn’t take advantage of because I have been convalescing since June 25th. I guess there is always next year but we had such good intentions of caring for our gardens properly. Another year, another learning experience. But I am glad we cleared it out early so it is one less thing we have to do in preparation for the winter. We did set up a little grow centre for herbs in the winter (*cough* in 2021) so maybe we will do that this winter.

At the cottage last weekend I really enjoyed doing art, reading and writing by candlelight. Mr. Tucker mentioned how much he loved beeswax candles and he especially found them comforting around the darker months of the year. Well, yesterday I discovered a local business called The Wax Studio that makes these beautiful and seasonal beeswax candles & so we spent some of our pocket money on a couple.

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. So Saturday I chose the 13 movies for 2023 and we started watching them. We used to do the 13 days leading up & including Halloween but now with our schedules it makes more sense to just get through 13 in the month. We try and do a mix of classic, retro and modern as well as scary, campy and funny.

For our first movie this year, we started with a new & campy movie: Renfield

Here are the reviews:

The Youngest: 9/10. I loved it. But the whole thing with the dead dad was kind of cliché and I don’t like when they kill the parents off.

The Eldest: 8/10. It was a good movie but I found it to be rushed. Some parts didn’t make a ton of sense at some points, but overall it was good.

Mr. Tucker: 7/10 cause I’m lame and thought the dad thing was cliché too. Cool action and imaginative kills. Nick cage looking like current Marilyn Manson was fun.

As for me? I did enjoy the gore and creativity. I also like new takes on old stories if they are done well and I found this modern take on Renfield charming. I like a nice, low stakes watch with good pacing and so this worked for me. Generally, I am not a movie person so I am easy to please.

***

My plan is to journal and read today and maybe watch something. I am still supposed to be convalescing but yesterday I felt better than I have in a long time. My walking has improved exponentially and I am mostly back down to one sidearm crutch again.

The only real chore I have is to do a meal plan for the week. I find it’s easier to plan in advance by the things that need to be eaten from our CSA box. It also stops food waste by eating things before they start to go bad. Writing it down on the whiteboard – and writing down the movie we are watching that night – stops the constant cacophony of “WHAT’S FOR DINNER?” & “WHAT MOVIE ARE WE WATCHING?” questions every night. It’s purely for my own sanity.

Have a great Monday!

The different stages of a good life

The different stages of a good life

When I was in my teens and 20s my idea of travel were of traipsing around Europe staying in hostels and meeting new people. I was raised by someone who loved travel to exotic locales and who had traveled extensively so it was a natural fit. I did do some of that when I was younger and it was lovely.

Conversely, my paternal grandparents owned a condo in Florida and drove down in the winters where they stayed for 4-6 months a year. When I was younger the idea absolutely repulsed me: why bother going anywhere that you wouldn’t experience history, culture and art? I wanted new landscapes and new food and to meet new people! It confounded me that they had never left the continent and I couldn’t see the value in going to the same place year-after-year. I also never understood the concept of sitting on a beach all day. ZZZZZ…boring! Cruising? Well that was for the newly wed and the nearly dead!

Mr. Tucker and I ended up getting married in the Caribbean because my parents paid for it and one of them was very keen to plan it in a certain place on a certain beach. I was neutral on the place but we did end up having an amazing week. When we arrived Mr. Tucker and I sat on a beach for the first time with a drink and he turned to me and said, “NOW I get why people enjoy this so much!”

When I was in my 20s I also had dreamed of owning a country house with acreage where we would be self-sufficient so that we wouldn’t need to have as much of an income. I had been inspired by The Tightwad Gazette and books that Helen and Scott Nearing wrote. While Mr. Tucker and I sat in our 530sq ft condo downtown, we often would look at farms for sale. At one point we were even starting to look at properties that would fit the bill.

In the end, when I got pregnant with the eldest we ended up in a mid-century suburb having traded homes with a relative who also owned half of the condo. Mr. Tucker was not happy but this relative always wanted to retire in the condo so we sucked it up and moved into the house. It remains to this day the biggest fight we have ever had. Not all was lost though: we met some really great friends in that neighbourhood, people who we continue to be close with to this day. Unfortunately, the relative had told us that they would sell us the house at one price and then reneged on the deal because condo life hadn’t turned out the way they wanted it & they wanted their house back. They signed the condo over to me (we had invested a lot in the house) and we all know how that is going.

We ended up buying a new house also in a mid-century suburb because by the time we were forced to move, the shine on the country life had worn off. Our kids were 7 and 9 at the time and were used to the amenities of the city, I had a career, was investigating ongoing medical issues at the time, and we wanted the kids to stay in the same school system. Oh, and I did want a puddle.

We don’t regret the decision now that we are middle-aged and in retrospect a farm would have taken our lives in a completely different direction. We probably would have ended up back in the city anyway with my medical needs.

So what gives?

Age gives.
Mobility gives.
Finances give.
…and life changes.

You change.

It happens slowly over time but your ideas about the future change when it actually becomes the future. If we had pursued our dream of owning a farm and being self-sufficient it would have been disastrous when I became disabled. I probably wouldn’t had my career and with it the disability benefits that pay 70% of my pre-disability salary (indexed to inflation). It would have left us scrambling for money and resources. I am grateful that the dreams I had in my 20s didn’t come to fruition, it would have ruined my middle age.

We have also had multiple cruise vacations (you can’t hostel through the Panama Canal) and have a beach resort vacation planned for this winter. We have changed so substantially in the 21 years that we have been together.

Now, at 47, I even see why my grandparents bought a place in Florida: as you get older, the winters feel harsher, walking in the ice and snow becomes more dangerous and the lack of sun really affects you. Last year I read an article about Margaritaville in the New Yorker and I didn’t feel revulsion, it made complete sense! This isn’t to say that I am rushing out to buy a house there but it occurred to me that for a certain group of people living there is an absolute dream.

Mr. Tucker and I have been discussing our ideas of what a good life really is. We used to dream of him retiring early and us being able to take off and travel the world. But going to Puerto Rico in 2022 for two weeks was an absolute nightmare. Travel post-pandemic was a nightmare (4 hours to get through security in Toronto), when we got there it was a comedy of errors (bald tires on the rental, getting lost in the mountains, roaches in the hotel room, no restaurants open in the town we stayed in etc.) and it has since really turned Mr. Tucker off of travel. While we still laugh at the stories we have from that trip the sour taste still hasn’t been completely eliminated from his mouth.

The only reason I got Mr. Tucker to agree to a trip this winter is that it is a> a direct flight; b> an all-inclusive resort; c> he will theoretically be retired so he won’t have to leap back into work if it is a horrible experience. Our trip in 2022 felt to him like work and then he had to jump right back into work when he got back.

Life is a series of experiences and those experiences lead to change about what you consider a good life. 14-year-old me loved go to the mall and shop for name brand clothes I could show off to my friends. I couldn’t have imagined ever NOT wanting to go shopping when I was that age. 47-year-old me avoids the mall like the plague. I also hate the idea of more stuff to clean, maintain and store. Impressing other people also holds no interest for me. Age is also why driving down to Florida for a month in the winter becomes more appealing over time as flying has become more hostile, post-pandemic. Getting to the airport early and dealing with delayed or canceled flights seems like more of a nightmare than just driving and taking our time. 24-year-old adventurous travel me is not 47-year-old mobility-impaired me. We are completely different people with different needs, goals and desires.

This isn’t to say that we wont fly places and travel more when good deals come up, I am just saying that I finally understand why people enjoy different types of travel. For our future travel, it may just look more tempered and less adventurous. When Mr. Tucker retires we will still have 5 years until the last kid turns 18 so a lot of that time will be spent staying home. Next year the eldest will be in grade 11 (here the biggest years to get into university rely on your grades for 11&12) so we won’t be able to pull her out of school to take advantage of a good travel deal. Also, the kids will be working in the summer so travel will be out during summer holidays as well.

Recently, Mr. Tucker and I were discussing how excited we both were to build new gaming computers this November. He got pensive for a minute and then said, “you know what? Even if we never traveled again, I would be ok with that. I like that we have our little house that has everything we need and we have a really good life right here.” To be honest, I have to agree. We have SEEN a lot and DONE a lot and if we never get to travel again we will have still done more travel than most people. Having a cozy little life with a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, time to work on our hobbies and see our friends IS a good life. A very good life, indeed. And that is enough.

Friendsgiving 2023

Friendsgiving 2023

If I was to tell my younger self that one of the biggest hurdles of my adult life was to book travel accommodations my younger self would laugh in my face. But yet, every year there is a challenge.

Back when we traveled every summer with two other families it was finding 3 cottages on one lot (that wasn’t a huge resort with multiple cottages). Now it is that alongside accessibility challenges and an adult who can’t drive as far due to his own disability. In short, a tall order.

But even when I do get it right, I get it wrong. We originally planned this weekend in the early spring and of course I thought I had done all of the due diligence with asking about accessibility. However, every time I ask I learn that I either need to be more clear about my needs or that the owners need to be more clear about how inaccessible their property is.

When I first emailed the place we stayed this past weekend I said that I do have mobility issues but that I can manage a step up as I walk with sidearm crutches and have balance issues. So the owner recommended one cottage and I went ahead and booked it. Sadly, the cottage was THREE incredible steep/tall DIY’d steps up, no railing, and the deck was a minefield of holes where the wood had rotted through. He offered us a smaller cottage with one step but it was on a bit of a hill I couldn’t get down and it had no deck at all. I ended up taking the first cottage and getting up the stairs by sitting on the deck, swinging my legs onto the deck and then using a picnic table to push up to standing. Not ideal but from there the entire cottage was on one level, so…partial win?

But as it turns out, the entire property was pretty inaccessible, the cottages were far apart and on steep inclines and even my able-bodied friends had challenges walking around. There were also no lights on the property and it was right up against the highway. One of the other parents said, “If I had booked these cottages and I had small children, I would be pissed that the cottages were next to the road.” The pictures make it look like all of the property is flat and on even ground & secluded but there was no way to even walk to the beach without hiking up and over a hill, so that was a challenge.

We usually do these weekends for the kids so that they can get out into nature and run around with their friends but I would be lying if I didn’t say I felt a little cheated by the entire property. In the end it rained the entire time we were there so it worked out since no one could really go outside and enjoy the fall weather. Also, since we had the larger cottage everyone came to me to hang out, so again, a win.

I wish that it was law to actually post the accessibility availability for all rentals. Not forcing owners to actually have accessible places (but with an aging population, there is definitely a need for that!) but to indicate how wide doorways are, if there are ramps, if the stairs are to code etc. as well as to mention if the grounds are flat or sloped. I feel like the pictures we saw on the website really bait-and-switched us into renting places that were unlike what was described. A non-accessible example would be that two cottages claimed to have loft spaces but the ladders of the loft were rickety and dangerous and once my kids got up to look around, it was basically a plywood platform. Not the fun hideaway they thought it would be. On top of that, one of our friends had non-potable water and had to run to our place to fill bottles. Had they been alone and all of the other cottages had been rented to strangers…what then?

It seemed to be a mishmash of nightmares but since we were already there we decided to make the best of it. We did end up having a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner that Mr. Tucker cooked, the kids got to run around with other kids, the adults spent Friday night up late chatting and we all got some fresh air and a change of scenery. Honestly though, my favourite part of the weekend was driving there and back. I could have saved myself $900 by just tossing the family in the car and going for a long country drive instead.

Giving people grace in online discourse

Giving people grace in online discourse

I loved this piece – investing from a cave – mostly because I have been discussing the same thing with Mr. Tucker lately. When I started this blog and when I set up my Instagram I limited comments. Why? Because I used to work in social media, that’s why. I know people are going to hate this because in the past 15 years since social media became a HUGE thing we have been told that everyone has a right to their opinion in the online town square but I am here to say the opposite: no. No, I don’t need to hear every opinion under the sun. In fact, it is probably better that I don’t.

This is not to say that I don’t respect people’s ability to have their own space to voice their own opinions: I most certainly do! But I don’t feel like I should have to “take it” just because it’s online and some bro is screaming, “freedom of speech!” at me. That’s why I tightly control the spaces I have created. While this could be a lengthy treatise on the state of online discourse, that would just be beating a dead horse. We all know that the state of online conversation often rapidly descends into name-calling, abuse and even threats. People have actually died from swatting so it’s a very serious issue that should be taken seriously. I take it seriously by not allowing comments to blow up to that level by …not allowing comments. It’s also why the first thing I did when I went on disability leave was to shitcan twitter. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I do maintain a facebook account for community stuff as well as to keep in contact with certain people. I also have Instagram to document photos and keep up with an entirely different group of people. Often, the algorithm will serve me up some random content – usually a reel – with 20k+ comments on it. It’s just so shocking to me that 20k+ people felt the urge to spend some time of their “one wild and precious life” to argue, denigrate and generally act like an ass online. WHY? Are we so addicted to the dopaminergic buzz we get from beefing with strangers that we let it consume our minutes, hours and days? Clearly the answer is yes. What’s more, other people create this content in order to sew discord amongst people with their hot takes in order to generate income. What a mess.

I have been on the internet for a very, very long time and I remember the days of Livejournal with its snark communities (no literally, they were called Snark_OtherCommunityName) that were designed to trash posts where people were (often) asking really dumb questions. To this day I cannot remember even one of the arguments I had 20 years ago on Livejournal. All those hours spent angry and trying to one-up people was in the end, a ridiculous waste of my time.

As the newer platforms ramped up, reacts & comment sections did similar dirty work on public accounts, and it got worse and worse as the algorithms keyed into the fact that enragement is engagement. If you haven’t read The Chaos Machine yet, I highly recommend it. It details the far-reaching consequences of that business model and how it’s undermined democracy, encouraged genocide and rewired our brains. It’s a great read and a macrocosm of the online negativity we’ve all experienced.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how humans historically have had about 100 people in their circle and even the people who ventured outside of their small hamlets have really only come across about 500. Compare that to the 22k+ comments on a reel and it is no wonder we are living in a time of huge anxiety and worry. Marketing and algorithms favour making us feel inadequate and promote lies and misinformation, so no wonder we are confused, depressed and miserable.

This isn’t to say that I don’t love a rousing debate – because I do! In fact, in high school I was co-captain of the debate team. Nothing fills me with more joy than a couple of pints at the pub with some of my friends, discussing weighty issues. In general, social convention often (but not always) dictates that these conversations are what Nick Cave calls Good Faith Conversations. Here is the difference between a battle of minds at the pub and online comment sections: there is a real, live person in front of you. No one is hiding behind a screen spewing off rage, you know who you are speaking to and you know how to shut things down if they become overheated. It’s much more difficult to read someone’s intent or rage levels when they are behind an avatar. In-person discussions with strangers tend to be kinder, more respectful because you can see their faces, see their feelings and have to often live with them in your community. Conversations happen in the moment, giving people time and space to explain themselves as opposed to online where dialogue can be stretched out over myriad days as just when you think the convo has ended…some random person jumps in and starts fighting all over again. It feels like you constantly have to look over your shoulder because you never know when the attack may start afresh (it’s also why I make all of my facebook posts private after 24 hours – to control the time I spend on there).

Also, we are so much different online than in other sphere of our lives. We act differently around our grandparents than we do our friends. We speak in different tones to our children than we do our bosses. Context matters. So for a lot of people social media has been a balancing act between saying what we feel vs. not saying anything at all for fear of alienating certain groups of people in our lives. Sure, we can have different accounts or use filtered lists (and block the more unsavoury people we still need to keep in touch with) but often it is just easier to keep our social media to the most innocuous content. This makes us feel disingenuous and alienated and sometimes I wonder if it is just easier to not have any content at all.

I am grateful to the internet for bringing me some of the closest, most amazing friends I have ever had but with that comes a dark side. I enjoy blogging and I enjoy reading blogs. I don’t even mind respectful, contrarian points being made. But much too often I see even the most normal people react in extreme ways to content they don’t enjoy or agree with – myself included. Sometimes I will go back and read comments I’ve left previously and they come off as harsh when I intended them to just be factual. That is the challenge with online discourse: you have no frame of reference in body language or knowledge of people’s personalities so it can be read in a completely different tone by different people. Previously I always read comments as being more negative in tone but over the years I have learned to give people more grace and until they show me otherwise, I choose to read their commentary positively instead. It’s difficult and I don’t always hit the target but I do try. We are all human though and are ruled by human foibles like overreacting when we have had a bad day.

Still, in the end, if you don’t like the content I am serving, you are free to not read it at all. You are also free to post a counter-argument in your own space. But you will have to excuse me if I choose to not debate you in public. I don’t have time to respond to pile-ons from strangers and quite frankly, you shouldn’t either. No two people are going to agree 100% of the time and that’s ok. Scroll on my friend, just scroll on.

Let’s all go for a walk and touch some grass.

A major, life-changing surgery

A major, life-changing surgery

All we have for coffee this morning is some dark roast that we’ve accidentally purchased. I have drowned it with sugar (I take my coffee without sugar generally) in the hopes that I can get through it. I don’t want to throw it out but it still may end up on Buy Nothing.

This morning is the first time I have really been able to sit up straight for a decent period of time so I figure I would update on how my surgery went. It’s 11 days post-operation today and I am feeling pretty great. For those of you who are interested and who don’t get squicked out by talk of surgery and/or menstruation, I have put the details after the READ MORE below so that you don’t have to continue if you don’t want to. But for people who have struggled with their monthly cycles their entire life – like me – I hope this helps other peeps with functioning uteri make informed decisions. This post is actually taken from a series of posts/comments from facebook so it may not be as well written.

Warning: graphic.


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Read More Read More

No good deed goes unpunished OR let’s reno a condo!

No good deed goes unpunished OR let’s reno a condo!


I’ll be quite honest with you: I never wanted to be a landlord. I had no dreams of a real estate empire or building equity in owning buildings. It’s risky, a lot of work and it’s not my thing at all. Now with the increasing interest rates bearing down on people it’s terrifying to think of how leveraged some people are*.

But when we moved into our current house, I jointly-owned a condo downtown with a relative. Mr. Tucker & I began our life in there with our dog Dixie so it holds some nostalgia for us. This relative also owed me a lot of money for making capital repairs to their home while we rented the house from them (it is quite confusing but originally the plan was that we were supposed to switch homes and we would pay a certain amount. It didn’t work out.). At the same time ANOTHER relative was breaking up with a partner and struggling. So it made sense to just let the second relative move in at cost and figure things out from there because…

We had moved in December two weeks before Christmas, then a series of misfortunate events happened:
– We discovered that the condo had been basically destroyed by water & smoke damage and we suddenly had to do a lot of renovations
– The kids started in their new school and it was a challenging time
– I was diagnosed and we found ourselves suddenly without one income

I thought things couldn’t get worse from there but over the course of the next year we discovered that the relative we had rented to was unreliable. It was nothing too onerous: partial payments here, asking to borrow money there but there were definitely signs. Two weeks before the following Christmas we got a call that they were struggling a lot with their mental health and so they moved into our house for a few weeks as I helped them chase down emergency therapy supports around the city. It was then that we discovered that they were deeply in debt and struggling, so (stupidly) Mr. Tucker and I offered to help consolidate their debts onto my line of credit** and help them get back on their feet again. Previously they had been a pretty responsible adult with a great job so we figured they only needed a bit of a boost. I smartly had a lawyer friend witness a contract agreement between us both that had this relative paying us a certain amount every two weeks with the goal of paying it all off and building back their credit.

I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of it but as it turns out this person hasn’t been going to work. They got by in various ways, I guess, but in May of this year they basically just stopped paying and didn’t return calls, texts or emails. In August Mr. Tucker had to go down to the condo and ask them to leave in person. They still haven’t spoken to me and have now holed up in YET ANOTHER relative’s basement.

So for the SECOND time in 5 years we found ourselves doing a complete renovation of a trashed condo. The floors are damaged, there is smoke damage, and all of the appliances need to be replaced. So once again we find ourselves paying a mortgage and condo fees on a place that is unrentable and unsaleable. It is compounded by the fact that I have a broken foot still, school starts on Tuesday and I have a major abdominal surgery on Wednesday so Mr. Tucker will need to stay with me for that first week.

Originally Mr. Tucker and I wanted to hire a contractor and just get it done as soon as possible. We thought we had found someone but then he basically bait-and-switched us for more money and asked for more time. Even though his prices were astronomical the timeline was such that he said he’d be able to complete the work quicker than anyone else, which is why we agreed to his terms. So him coming back and changing the terms was so weird that Mr. Tucker and I told him that we would discuss and get back to him. The next morning at 6am we received an email from his “son” saying that he had been injured (between the hours of 10pm and 6am – what rotten luck!) and that he would be out of commission for a few weeks…and then he posted a video on social media a few hours later of him doing some tree and hedge work. I just absolutely had to laugh at the ridiculousness. Just bow out gracefully, my dude, no need to make up stories.


Note saying to not use the microwave

At that point though Mr. Tucker had had enough. So we hit up the IKEA website, he borrowed tools from his dad and he just made the decision to DIY it. So far he’s gotten rid of the appliances, over this weekend he has replaced the countertops and taps in the bathroom and kitchen, will replace the showerhead, do some grouting & sealing and then hopefully paint it all so that we can stage it and get it on the market. What makes me laugh is that we will basically save $8500 by DIYing this project despite losing so much time with the back-and-forth with this “#OurCity’s Handman.” Mr. Tucker is essentially learning new skills out of spite and fueled by rage.

So I guess not all is lost: Mr. Tucker is impressed with how easy it is to install things from IKEA (which #OurCity’s Handman also said he uses), he’s enjoying the process of learning these new skills and a friend has offered to help us repair the floors where they have come up. Sure, it’s not an ideal situation but knowing what we know now I wish we had started two weeks ago instead of messing around and going back-and-forth with this numpty (we also have a local contractor who is lovely but he does amazing work, is reliable and so, is already busy).

Hopefully we can get it all cleaned up and looking great sooner rather than later and then our realtor friend will put it on the market for us. While we are both nostalgic for the great times we have had there, the future has us moving forward towards Mr. Tucker’s retirement. Keeping the condo isn’t an option unless he works full time and while we are sad to to let it go, we are happy that someone else can make great memories there.

Mr. Tucker is already talking about what projects he could also tackle around the house. So I guess if there is a sunny side to this story it is that it is fun to learn new skills & it is empowering to know you can DIY things…and of course, a special thanks to YouTube and IKEA.

*I am not, I could afford to keep the condo and rent it but again, I have no interest in being a landlord. We will try and sell it first and then if it doesn’t sell, we’ll consider it.
** Yes, yes…only lend money you can afford to give away. It won’t sink us but it is truly maddening.

Let’s go to the ALS clinic!

Let’s go to the ALS clinic!

I love that my last neurologist had a quick start guide – no one remembers everything!

The last time I went to the ALS clinic was in 2021 when I was told that unlike the other patients, I only had to go in every two years. As the nurse walked me out that day, she said, “Wow! You are the only one who gets such a long time in between appointments. It’s because you are doing so well!” I felt pretty proud of that even though I do have to admit that the pandemic made me do less exercise than I did pre-pandemic.

So Mr. Tucker took me to my appointment this year (broken foot means I can’t drive) and he got to experience a day in the Rehabilitation Centre. In general, the ALS clinic has the following appointments they book for their patients:

• Physiatrist
• Physical Therapist
• Speech-Language Pathologist
• Clinical Dietitian
• Respiratory Therapist
• Nurse Coordinator
• Occupational Therapist
• Social Worker
• Chaplain

I see:
• Physiatrist (& the nurse coordinator)
• Respiratory Therapist
• Neurologist

Honestly, I don’t need the other appointments so I don’t book them. I probably could do without respiratory as well and may skip it next time. My numbers are generally consistent and so I may just stick with the basics until I need more care. My neurologist I typically see in this main office at another hospital but he goes to the ALS Clinic once a week so I booked in to see him when he was there because it made sense to batch the tasks. Oh, I also got word from my PLS mentor C.H. that she was in clinic that day, so we made plans to have a coffee afterwards.

When I first was diagnosed with PLS I caught wind that another woman in the area had lived with PLS for a long time and was still fairly healthy. Although they couldn’t tell me who she was due to privacy reasons, I tracked her down online within a few hours (thank you career in Social Media!). Since then, C.H. has become what I would call a Motor Neuron Disease mentor to me. She has given me a lot of great tips and tricks from her experience of living with PLS for over 20 years and I am grateful for her wise counsel! She taught me the basics of what I needed to know to move forward in this journey:

1 – Doctors will batch you in with ALS patients because PLS is so rare but our trajectories are very different.
2 – Our lack of Lower Motor Neuron involvement means that we can build muscle and via exercise we can keep our balance more on track with physiotherapy.
3 – There are off label drugs that can help PLS patients by increasing balance and lowering spasticity.
4 – Barring other things (like a broken hip from falls), we probably won’t die from PLS. We have normal life spans.

Unfortunately, because PLS is a diagnosis of exclusion, usually you can’t make a PLS diagnosis until around the 5-7 year mark since the onset of symptoms. That makes it very tricksy indeed. I am on year 10 now and I haven’t seen a decrease in ability over the past 4 or so years, which means I have probably plateaued. We hear rumours of people with PLS who have gone full ALS after 20+ years but from what I can tell, no first-hand accounts. However, there are many people who have had PLS for 20 to 30 years who also have varying degrees of disability so it seems that people don’t have a consistent trajectory for this disease.

My favourite part of the ALS clinic has to be the amazing therapy dog, Copain (Buddy or Pal, in French). He’s been going as long as I have and he is such a calm, happy boy. To be quite honest, it’s the #1 reason to attend the ALS clinic! LOOKIT WHAT A GOOD BOY HE IS! LOOKIT HIS LITTLE “VOLUNTEER” NAME TAG!

My least favourite part is respiratory. Aside from the mounds of wasteful plastic, I feel like as an asthmatic my breathing changes day-to-day and in the 5 years of going to the clinic, my breathing hasn’t changed so significantly to warrant future appointments. So the next time I go, I may just skip this as well and just speak to the two doctors and the nurse.

My second favourite part is seeing my neurologist, Dr. B. we discuss current studies I can enroll in, new drug trials taking place, now & exciting research that is happening and just generally chit chat about my overall wellbeing. Then he tests my reflexes and spasticity, gives me another boatload of prescriptions and then he sends me on my way. I do have his email address & that of his admin so if I ever need to make additional appointments or discuss any challenges, that is the way to get ahold of him. I ended up sending him a post-visit email on some exciting new research happening but I generally don’t bug them unless I need to.

While I do enjoy talking to the nurse (amazing woman, so supportive!) it’s taken awhile for the physiatrist to come around. On one hand, I don’t blame her: PLS is often conflated with ALS and so people tend to see us as just a slower version of ALS* and the jury is still out as to whether or not PLS is just a form of ALS or whether it is its own thing (I tend to suspect the latter, but I’m open). The first time I met the physiatrist she pretty much shot down any inklings I had of “getting better.” On the one hand, I get it: neuro patients don’t typically get better. On the other hand, progression for people like us is often incredibly slow and there *are* things we can do to maintain balance and muscle. I think that for a long time she fell into the camp who believed that we were just slow-moving ALS patients so the advice for them is to not expend any energy they don’t need to because it would increase muscle wasting & they need to conserve energy. But after the years of C.H. and I doing physio and maintaining mobility, I think the physiatrist has seen the benefits of exercise and balance work. That’s great because people diagnosed after us will get the benefit of not being told that there is nothing they can do and feel like they just have to go home to die.

A word on healthy living: absolutely live the healthiest that you can. Go for walks, reduce stress, eat well, maintain relationships and balance in your life. But know this: there are some things in the world that you can absolutely not change. Those of us in the west are obsessed with personal responsibility. We’ve been told by the culture at large that if we do all of the right things that we will die in our sleep peacefully at 100 and that we won’t suffer the limitations of people who live unhealthy lifestyles.

The reality is though that there are some things that are random and unknown. A personal responsibility culture dictates that if ONLY you had done something different, the outcome would have been different: you won’t be depressed if you have gratitude and meditate. You got hit by that car because you weren’t crossing the street in X way. You got MS because you don’t eat an (insert current diet du jour here). We put the onus on the disabled and sick after-the-fact to tease out what they did and where they went wrong. Sure, sometimes that is the case but often there are societal factors that also prevent people from making the right decisions.

Things are probably a mix of genetics, behaviour, environment and randomness but it’s hard to determine for any individual to figure out what is from column A, B, C or some random column that we don’t even know exists yet. It sells books, makes TikTok’s go viral and makes people feel better about their decision-making process but it’s a false god: some things we won’t ever know and so you better get used to living with the uncertainty if you want to move forward and live your one, wild life to the fullest. Otherwise you can go down the dark tunnel of obsession and make your diagnosis the only thing that defines you.

Quite frankly, in my mind my diagnosis the explanation as to why I have limitations but it isn’t the excuse as to why I am not living my life. Instead of focusing on what I can’t do, I focus on what I can still do. Sometimes I overshoot and pretend that I am able-bodied (see: my broken foot & wearing flip flops & broken their foot on uneven ground. The physiatrist even said to me, “Even an able-bodied idiot would have probably tripped over a tree root in flip-flops.” …wait a second..!) and I end up paying for it. But more often than not I discover that there is a work around and that I can still do the things I enjoy but with a modification.

At the end of my day at the ALS clinic, C.H. and I went outside afterwards and sat on a bench to catch up. Mr. Tucker brought us coffees and kindly waited for me off to the side as CH and I chatted about the past couple of years. C.H. at one point turned to me and said that the physiatrist had said to her, “You know, some patients we have here at the clinic are a FORCE,” and CH said that she laughed and laughed and knew that she had been absolutely talking about me. Maybe that is where I am sitting in the grand universe of things: I am – and I continue to be – A FORCE.

Til the end, friends.


Copain and I feel the same way about filling out the ALSFRS-R score paperwork

*FWIW: there is also upper-motor-dominant ALS, which we suspect Stephen Hawking had, which makes the waters even murkier. But pure PLS patients don’t typically have lower-motor-neuron involvement, which can be determined by an EMG…but not always! Aren’t brain diseases fun (note: not at all).