5 Intentions for 2025
Try to avoid a nervous breakdown, and some other things.
Join AMERICA??? Danielle Smith might be salivating over the idea, when she takes her head out of Trump’s ass long enough to take a breath, but the rest of us would prefer not to have to worry every day about our kids getting shot in school, or I don’t know, having to remortgage the house to get a fucking plantar wart removed.
Happy New Year! What’s everyone up to? Me, oh I’m just sitting here waiting for the news to break that Trump has challenged Putin to an ultimate cage fight, winner takes the other’s country, and all the Republicans are like, “cool, cool.”
I know I knoooooooow, I’m sorry to be writing about plantar warts and Trump, but it’s genuinely hard to talk about one and not the other. I promise this is it, it won’t happen again, but I made the mistake of turning on the radio Tuesday afternoon, when I was warming up the leftovers from a deadly cod tagine that I’d made the night before, and caught a snippet of CBC’s World Report, or as I like to call it, “Oh, You Thought Yesterday Was Bad?” It’s a good thing I don’t live in the US because the blood pressure meds I’ll inevitably have to take after listening to four years of this bullshit would legit bankrupt me.
Like, honest to god, in what world am I yelling “YEAH! LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO DOUG FORD!!!” at the radio.
Okay, alright, enough! So, who’s made New Year’s resolutions this year, and have you failed them already, or are you one of these show-offs who actually “gets shit done in your life”? I prefer the much gentler “intentions” and I like to make them fun so I can pat myself on the back and say things like, “good for you for trying a brand new cocktail every Friday night in January”, or “look at you, finding the perfect microwave chocolate pudding cake” which I am making at this very moment of writing because life is short and there’s crème fraiche in the fridge that needs to be used. I nabbed the very last tub of it at Coleman’s on Tibb’s Eve and I refuse to offend the Baby Jesus by letting it go to waste.
Here are a few intentions I hope to incorporate into my life in 2025, providing of course we don’t all have to drop everything to join an underground militia when Evil Creamsicle goes all Red Dawn on us. Though I suppose it would be more orange, really.
Intention 1: This Big Beautiful Bastard
More projects in 2025! Like this Pistachio and Cherry Bombe from NYT Cooking that I’ve pined over for years now. As soon as cherry season hits, I’m on it. Adventures to be posted here, of course. The photo will not look like this and I will probably have been in tears most of the day, but goddammit, it’s going to happen.
Intention 2: More Sunday Meals with Friends
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Sunday afternoon is the new Saturday night. More braised meat and day drinking, at least once a month with people I like having in my house.
Intention 3: Cold Water Swimming
Am I hopping on a trend? Yeah so what, who cares, it’s not like you’ve never given up carbs, or dumped a bucket of ice water over yourself to post on Facebook, or attempted a sourdough starter during a global pandemic. Will I be one of those jerks who posts pics of me swimming in the ocean in January and bragging about it? You bet your ass. Because there is nothing more empowering as a middle aged woman than walking by a fit twenty-something bro shivering and baby-stepping into the shallows mid-thigh, and leaping past him into the ocean without flinching or looking back. It’s a high I can’t quit.
Listen, I’m no pro. I’ve got a handful of October dips under my belt, one November, and one December. The day before New Year’s Eve, my friend Sandy and I ran in like bosses, made it as far as our necks, and I ran back to the beach screaming, “I’M GETTING OUT I’M GETTING OUUUUT” like a banshee, tearing off my suit and fumbling for my towel. Sandy lasted a few more seconds, and by the time we’d both made it to shore, a lone winter kayaker paddled into view. He would have heard our unearthly noises shattering his peaceful paddle long before seeing us. Maybe when he came around the point he was relieved to see no one getting murdered, or a bit dismayed at glimpsing a bit too much of me on the beach. Either way, Happy New Year to you, sir.
So, yeah. I’m working on it.
Intention 4: More Cooking Outside
Which we all might have to do if shit keeps heading in this direction. AI won’t be able to light you a fire and cook a can of beans, Jaxon. Time to put down the iPad and spend some quality time with Nan and Pop learning some old timey wilderness survival skills.
Seriously though, everything is better on a boil up: tea, food, youngsters.
Intention 5: Give Fewer Fucks
2024 was the year of letting all the assholes live in our collective heads rent-free. So many assholes. So I’m officially kicking the tenants out. I’m saying goodbye to Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre and Trump and Vance and Putin and Mitch McConnell and fucking Elon Musk and the rest of the dickhead billionaires, and all the other classless gutless jerks who’ve been doing our heads in and draining our life forces for years. I’m done, I’m out.
Now, don’t get me wrong. If Don Jr. ever shows up at the St. John’s Airport with a Make Newfoundland Great Again ball hat, I’ll hop in my car and be the first one at Arrivals to yell, “EVERYBODY HATES YOU EVEN YOUR DAD!” But other than that, in 2025, you’ll mostly find me doing numbers one through four, while trying to be as fearless and joyful as I can.
See you at the beach! xo
Good intentions, road to hell not included.