50 years

I was looking at my datebook recently, and realized, with a bit of a shock, that today (May 9th) marks 50 (!!) years since my paternal grandmother -- my Baba -- passed away suddenly, at the far too young age of 68 (the same age dh is now, and not too much older than I am). I was 14, and although I'd lost a puppy when I was a pre-schooler, this was my first real experience with the death of a person close to me. 

Our Katie was named (in part) after her. 

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you to two previous posts I wrote about my grandmother:  

• Grandmother's Day (written 15!! years ago today, in 2010) 
• Flashback (from 2011) 

Thinking of you today, Baba. I wish we'd had you for longer, and that I'd known you better.  

"Miss Austen" by Gill Hornby

I had two reasons for choosing "Miss Austen" by Gill Hornby as my next read. (I read somewhere -- and had no idea! -- that Gill Hornby is the sister of writer Nick Hornby, and the wife of novelist Robert Harris.)  

First, I wanted to have the book at least partly read before the four-part TV adaptation began running on PBS Masterpiece on May 4th (and I did have it started). And second, several UK members of our Childless Collective Nomo Book Club read the book (in conjunction with the TV series when it aired there earlier this year) and suggested it might be one to consider for the group.  

"Miss Austen," the title character, is Cassandra Austen -- novelist Jane Austen's older sister. It's 1840 (with flashbacks to the past), Cassandra is now 60 years old (and there are numerous ANNOYING references to her "advanced age" -- AHEM!) and, like her famous late sister, never married.  As the story begins, Cassandra has invited herself to the vicarage at Kinmount, the home of her late friend Eliza Lloyd Fowle and her husband Fulwer Fowle, who has just passed away. Cassandra is there to offer her sympathy and support to the Fowles's frazzled spinster daughter, Isabella (who must vacate Kinmount, where the family has lived for the past several decades, in short order to make way for the new curate).  As the spinster daughter of a late vicar herself, Cassandra has personal experience in this matter. But she also has an ulterior motive: to find the letters that Jane wrote to Eliza. 

What's in the letters, and why is Cassandra so determined to find them? 

The book starts slowly but gradually becomes more interesting as the true purpose of Cassandra's visit is revealed, along with a backstory from 20-40 years earlier.  The writing has an Austen-ish flavour -- although of course, there was only one Jane Austen. ;)  It does drag on a little too long -- but the last few chapters were lovely. From a CNBC perspective, there's a lot of fodder here for thought & discussion as Cassandra reflects on her life as an older, unmarried childless woman, in an era where there were few options for women like her, Jane, and Isabella. 

Sample passage, from Chapter 24, that may sound familiar to some of us...! (interestingly, this is Cassandra reflecting on her own misunderstanding of another woman's situation):  

Then how great was her own arrogance!  How great, now, was her shame! She had taken the lessons of her own life and imposed them on the life on another.  She had interpreted her own happiness and promoted it, relentlessly, as the only true happiness.  Misled by an old woman's blind faith in "experience" and "wisdom"....

And this, from Chapter 25:  

Jane flicked her hand. "...You know, she really, genuinely, in her deep heart of hearts, pities all three of us. Here I am. England's Happiest Woman -- self-appointed, perhaps, but official nonetheless, the crown is secure on my head -- and in comes Mary, assesses my lot, and can only see Tragedy."  

"She approaches the subject of Life with quite different criteria." 

"Yes, but is she alone?"  Jane wanted to know. "Does everyone feel that way? Do they all look at us and see three creatures as joyless and stiff as" -- she looked around and her eye caught the cold fireplace -- "that poker? The fire screen? Some planks of dry wood?  We took the sow's ear that our fate offered us, and fashioned something quite wonderful..." 

Similar to "Can't We Be Friends," the letters Cassandra seeks (and eventually finds and reads) are entirely made up -- although Cassandra and Jane's brother James's hilariously bad poetry is, apparently, the real thing!  Somehow, I don't mind the fictional letters here quite as much as I did with "Can't We Be Friends" -- maybe because the events of this book happened more than 200 years ago, versus a mere 60-70 (and to people whose lives are much better known to us)?

3.5 stars on StoryGraph. I debated whether that should be rounded up or down for Goodreads, and eventually settled on 4 stars... perhaps I'm being overly generous, but I did appreciate the sympathetic depiction of single childless women, and those last few chapters. :)   

(I've seen one of the four episodes of the TV version so far -- so far, so good. Like the book, a little slow-moving -- and I noticed they've changed a few things from the book around -- but the sets and costumes are sumptuous -- it's gorgeous to look at! -- and it's fun to see the characters brought to life so well!)  

This was Book #14 read to date in 2025 (and Book #1 finished in April), bringing me to 31% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: Survivor, Gilead style ;)

I've been slogging my way through the final 10 episodes of the final season (#6) of "The Handmaid's Tale" on TV. (Episode 7 airs on CTV Drama tomorrow night, and I believe new episodes are also being released weekly on the Crave streaming service here in Canada, where past episodes from past & current seasons are also available.)  

Frankly, it's time -- it feels like the show has run out of steam. The increasing confluence with current events frankly hits WAY too close to home for comfort -- and, as I've said before, just how many times can June get away with sneaking in & out of Gilead??  You can see the arc of the show slowly starting to bend towards a climactic ending -- and towards the storyline of Margaret Atwood's follow-up novel, "The Testaments" (link to my review), which will also be adapted for television once "The Handmaid's Tale" wraps up.

It's pretty obvious, I think (Gilead being Gilead), that not all the characters are going to survive the end of the season. (If you think everything is going to be tied up with a neat bow -- with Gilead vanquished and happy endings and reunions all round -- you haven't been paying much attention, lol -- and you certainly haven't read "The Testaments!")  I don't want to give away too many spoilers for people who haven't read "The Testaments" (and if you haven't, you should!), but we already know Aunt Lydia will survive this season, because it's been announced that Ann Dowd will play the character again in the new series, which (in the book, anyway) takes place about 15 years after the events of "The Handmaid's Tale." There are a few more characters that we know survive (assuming the TV version adheres to the book), and a couple that I'm guessing might turn up -- because there are characters in the book who might not go by names we'd recognize, but (from their descriptions) might be people we already know (it's not clear).  

I have a couple of guesses/predictions about who might not survive these last few episodes, though.  I'm going to go out on a limb (and be unpopular, lol) and say that either Nick or Luke -- and possibly both! -- might not make it. Likewise, I have my doubts that both Janine and Moira survive -- although one of them might. (Sorry, girls, I love you both.)  I'm unsure of Rita's fate.  And while I enjoy Bradley Whitford's conflicted and sarcastic Commander Lawrence, I'm not sure he's going to survive either.  I'm guessing that if he doesn't, he'll make his exit while doing something heroic that redeems him.     

I'm not willing to make bets on Serena Joy, one way or another. On the one hand, killing her off would seem like justice, given her role in building Gilead and her personal abuse of June -- but they've tried to make her more sympathetic in the last few season (with mixed results), and I would have mixed feelings about turning her into some kind of martyr.  I will say, I'm hoping her new would-be husband (who proposed at the end of the last episode/#6), the morally indignant Commander Wharton, gets his come uppance. ;) (Josh Charles is normally so likeable, I'm having a hard time seeing him as this unlikeable character, lol.)   

What do you think?  Do you agree or disagree with my theories?  Have any of your own??  I'd love to hear!  (And it will be fun to revisit this post and see whether any of my theories/guesses were correct!)  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

Right now

Right now...* 

*(an occasional (mostly monthly) meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"). (Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first "The Current" post, here.)

(Note: I omitted a couple of regular categories this month because I was drawing a blank as to what to write in them...!  But I added a few, and this post is plenty long as it is, I think!  It's all good...!) 

April went by in a blur.  On the negative side: politics! (Federal election on April 28th, and weeks of campaigning before that.)  On the plus side:  dh's birthday, and Easter with the family (including the great-niblings).  And by mid/late April, it was FINALLY starting to feel like spring!! 

Pandemic diary/update: After five (!) years (!), I've decided not to continue monthly pandemic updates, since there really hasn't been anything new to write about in a long time. (Which doesn't mean that covid isn't still out there.)  I'm still masking -- most of the time -- in stores, malls and other such indoor public spaces, especially if/when there are lots of people around -- and I intend to keep on doing so (there are plenty of germs floating around to be concerned about right now besides covid, too!).  (I'll admit, though, I'm not QUITE as much of a stickler about it as I was a while ago.)  

Dh has not been masking when he goes out by himself for a while now, and increasingly, he hasn't been wearing the ones I've handed to him. He does say he intends to keep masking on airplanes, though.

If our covid-free status changes (and I'm knocking wood, LOUDLY, that it won't...!) I'll write about it, and I'll continue to share any articles of interest on the topic that I run across.    

This month, we: 

• Went to the mall to walk around and shop once a week, usually on Tuesday mornings (April 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd & 29th). 
• Had passport photos taken (April 3rd). 
• Stopped en route home from the mall at the drugstore postal outlet on April 8th to mail our tax returns! & buy some large envelopes. 
• Returned the next day to arrange to courier our passport renewal applications to Ottawa (current passports expire in early May), then went to the bookstore for a browse. 
• Returned to the post office AGAIN on April 19th to courier our passport renewals BACK to Ottawa, after they were returned to us (on April 17th -- one week after they were originally sent) -- we both forgot to sign the forms in one spot. (Oops!)
• (I checked the tracking on the package -- it got to Ottawa and I notice my credit card was charged the fees for both passports, so I guess they're being processed!)  
• Attended a celebration of life for a friend from our pregnancy loss support group (April 6th). (Maskless.) 
• Went with BIL & SIL to BIL & dh's cousin's house on April 12th. He's an accountant and does BIL & SIL's taxes every year. BIL & SIL brought takeout lunch -- and we were happily surprised that the cousin's daughter was home from school in the UK!  As always, a great visit (my own klutziness notwithstanding...). 
• Went to the bookstore and then stopped at the drugstore en route home to pick up a prescription (April 16th). 
• Voted at an advance poll for the April 28th federal election (on April 18th/Good Friday). 
• After dropping our passport applications at the post office on Saturday, April 19th, braved the crowds at the supermarket to pick up a fruit tray to take to BIL's for Easter dinner the next day. 
• Spent the afternoon/early evening of Easter Sunday with BIL & family. Aside from a brief but (thankfully) relatively civil argument about politics and the upcoming federal election, it was a great afternoon, and we had a lot of fun with the three great-niblings -- who all showed up wearing the "Egg Hunting Squad" T-shirts I'd put in their Valentine's Day goody bags!  (Little Great-Nephew's was a little too small/tight! -- erk! -- but he still wore it!)  Needless to say, I was tickled!! (We got some really cute group photos too!) 
• Stopped at the drugstore, en route home from the mall on April 22nd to pick up another prescription. 
• Returned to our old community for haircuts on the afternoon of April 25th (with a stop at the cemetery to visit Katie en route). It was later in the day than we would usually go (but we were desperate, lol), so we didn't hang around the mall afterward to shop (trying to avoid the worst of the Friday afternoon traffic), although I did duck into the dollar store and drugstore for a few minutes while dh was getting done. 

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Also right now:  

Reading: I finished 3 books in April (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph, & tagged "2025 books"):  

• "Miss Buncle Married" by D.E. Stevenson ( (re)read in advance of our DES group chapter-by-chapter discussion, which began on April 21st. (3.5-4 stars;  original 2015 review here;  latest review here.) 
• "Can’t We Be Friends" by Denny S. Bryce & Eliza Knight (the May book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club). (3 stars;  my review.) 
• This book -- which I've decided not to name here (!), as the author is a personal friend.  I don't want to tempt fate by naming her and the book, and then having her (or mutual friends) stumble onto this blog, if/when they Google the book. However, the link posted here goes to my review on Goodreads, and I've also reviewed it on StoryGraph. (4 stars, explanation & review link also posted here.) 

This brings me to 13 books read in 2025 to date, 29% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) on track to meet my goal.  :) 

Current reads: 

• "Miss Buncle Married" by D.E. Stevenson, for my D.E. Stevenson group.  Our group discussion began on April 21st, and I'll count this as another re-read once we're finished (in July). I've read the book twice before on my own (once in 2015 and again prior to the start of our group read & discussion -- see above! (Original 2015 review here;  most recent review here). 
• "Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery (called "Anne of Windy Willows" in the U.K., with some text variations). My L.M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group started reading & discussing this book together on Jan. 6th. (Previous review here.) Currently 60% completed. 
• "Living the Life Unexpected" by Jody Day.  I'm once again taking part in a chapter-by-chapter group read of this CNBC classic!  The most recent Zoom meeting covered Chapter 8.  This is the 5th (!) time I've read this book, or the earlier version of it ("Rocking the Life Unexpected").  (Most recent review, with links to earlier reviews, here.)  
• "L.M. Montgomery and Gender," an essay collection edited by E. Holly Pike & Laura Robinson. Slowly working my way through, in between the other books...! 

Coming up: Most of my book groups have their next reads plotted out for a few months in advance -- and listing them here helps me keep track of what I should be reading next. ;)  

• For my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club:  
• "A Burning" by Megha Majumdar. (June) 
• "Rules For Visiting" by Jessica Francis Kane (July) 
• "Drive Your Plow (Over the Bones of the Dead)" by Olga Tokarczuk. (August) 
• "The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands" by Mary Seacole. (September) 
• "The Secrets of Blythswood Square" by Sara Sheridan. (October) 
• For my D.E. Stevenson group:  This list of upcoming books should keep us busy through 2025 or even into early 2026!  (A couple of the books are ones we covered shortly after I first joined the group back in 2014 -- you know you've been around for a while when....!)  
• The Two Mrs. Abbotts (likely starting in mid-July -- original 2015 review here).
• Crooked Adam
• The Four Graces (original 2015 review here). 

• Footnotes and Tangents slow readalongs planned for 2025 include:
• "A Place of Greater Safety" by Hilary Mantel -- starts May 5th, for 20 weeks. 
• "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe -- starts Sept. 29th, for 5 weeks. 
• "The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald -- starts Nov. 3rd, for 7 weeks. 

(Simon is a big fan of the late great Hilary Mantel, and the other books he's selected were all ones that she loved, so he figured they would probably be worth reading!) 

• Culture Study (Europe): next book TBA. 

A few recently purchased titles (all in digital format, mostly discounted ($5-10 or less) or purchased with points): 

• "Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live" by Susan Morrison 
  
• "The Age of Magical Overthinking" by Amanda Montell 
• "The Small and the Mighty" by Sharon McMahon 
• "Cue the Sun!" by Emily Nussbaum 
• "Right-Wing Women" by Andrea Dworkin 
• "So Now What?" by Lana Manikowski 
• "Missing Persons" by Clair Wills 
• "The Life Impossible" by Matt Haig 
• "The Stolen Queen" by Fiona Davis 
• "The Certainty Illusion" by Timothy Caulfield 
• "Caledonian Road" by Andrew O'Hagan 

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Watching: 

• "Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light" on PBS (in six parts). In discussing the book after I finished it last December (my review here), I told my fellow readers at Footnotes & Tangents, "I held it together at the end until Rafe (Sadler, Thomas Cromwell's protege and essentially his adopted son) started crying" -- and that was the point where I lost it while watching the final episode as well. Both book & filmed version are absolutely amazing feats of storytelling, and Mark Rylance (as Cromwell) and Damien Lewis (as Henry VIII) are superb. I don't give ratings here to the things I watch, but this one would definitely get 5 stars.  
• "The Handmaid's Tale" (the sixth & final season!). Currently up to episode 6 (of 10).  This show is even harder to watch than it was when it first began -- especially given current events! I continue to wonder just how many times June can pop in & out of Gilead/New Bethlehem, lol.  I can see the arc of the storyline gradually beginning to bend towards Margaret Atwood's 2019 sequel, "The Testaments," which I read and reviewed here, and which is also being turned into a series (in which Ann Dowd will reprise her role as Aunt Lydia). I'm hoping they don't stray too far from the book in that one either. 
• Too much pre- and post-election coverage (mostly on CBC/CBC News Network). ;)  (At least THAT's done!)  

Playing:  

• Heardle Decades: Stats as of April 30th:  
• Heardle 60s: 75.5% (688/911, 266 on first guess), down 0.5% from last month. Max. streak: 15.
• Heardle 70s: 78.1% (505/647, 287 on first guess), down 0.3% from last month. Max. streak: 18. 
• Heardle 80s: 38.2% (198/518, 72 on first guess), down 0.7% from last month. Max. streak: 4. 
• Heardle 90s: 30.9% (192/622, 42 on first guess), up 1.1% from last month. Max. streak: 5. 
• NYT Connections:  
• By March 31st, I'd played 246 games and won 84% of them, including 123 "perfect puzzles."  And I increased my maximum winning streak from 21 to 30! 
• By April 30th, I'd completed 276 games and won 83% of them, including 140 "perfect puzzles" with zero errors, including 6 where I got the most difficult/purple category first.  And I maintained my maximum winning streak at 30!  :)   

Following:  NHL playoff hockey ;) (particularly when the Toronto Maple Leafs or Winnipeg Jets are playing!) -- albeit not religiously. 

Eating/Drinking:  

• As I've mentioned before, we achieved our goal of lowering our cholesterol levels in late January,  after less-than-stellar bloodwork last fall earned us both serious chats with our doctor. We'll be doing more bloodwork later in the year to check again -- so we've continued our efforts to eat healthier -- reduce portion sizes, cut back on fatty & processed foods (fewer casseroles, more chicken and beans/lentils), eat more fruits, vegetables and fibre, snack less (and make better snacking choices), and be at least a little more active. 
• Since then, I've continued to yo-yo a bit, but I still ended the month 1.4 pounds lighter than at the end of March. (I'll take it!)  Overall, I've lost a little over 11 pounds since our chat with the doctor last October, and about 23 pounds from my heaviest-ever weight a few years ago. 
• For dh's birthday (April 11th), we indulged in his choice:  takeout California Sandwiches -- a treat we hadn't permitted ourselves since our chat with the doctor about diet and cholesterol last October -- as well as red velvet cupcakes for dessert. (I stuck a candle in dh's, lit it and had him blow it out.) 
• (I can only ever eat half of my chicken cutlet sandwich in one sitting -- they are HUGE. I saved the other half for dinner two days later.) 
• BIL & SIL brought takeout Portuguese chicken, potatos, rice and veggies from a local restaurant to BIL & dh's cousin's house for lunch (really tasty!), after which the cousin (an accountant) went to work on BIL & SIL's taxes while the rest of us visited. 
• For Easter dinner at BIL's we had pasta alfredo, barbecued steak, lamb & sausages, potatos with peppers, sauteed rapini, corn, and salad.  Two kinds of pie for dessert, plus fruit. 
• Some (other) notable recent takeout meals: soup, pizza slices and teriyaki rice bowls, all from the supermarket takeout counter, and takeout rotisserie chicken (with a baked potato for me, fries for dh). (Trying to avoid the stuff that's really calorie & fat-laden!) 

Wearing:  I'm still wearing long-sleeved tops, yoga pants and socks inside the house -- and slippers still too, on most days. But the weather HAS been gradually warming up, especially later in the month, and there have been several days when I've been able to venture outside in just a denim jacket (and I might not have even needed that!). I even wore a short-sleeved T-shirt to the mall this past week, no jacket!  Hopefully I'll be able to bring out the capris & sandals within another few weeks!      

Buying (besides books, lol): 

• More Canadian products (or, failing that, international) products (vs American -- you can probably guess why...! It's not always easy, though, given how intertwined our two countries' economies & supply chains are...!).  
• Goodies for the great-niblings' Easter baskets/bags, including clothes, stickers, little rabbits that hop around after you wind them up, and (of course!) chocolate (for the two older kids at least!). 
• I've continued to buy stuff for them since Easter too ;)  including matching Canada Day T-shirts from Old Navy. 
• Several pretty tank tops for summer at Reitmans (a Canadian women's wear chain, which has fairly reasonable prices). There's a store near where I live, but they also just opened a large new one at the nearby mall we frequent (yay!). I used a gift card dh gave me for Christmas to pay for part of it (even better!).  
• (I also had my eye on this pretty blouse that I thought would be perfect to wear to an upcoming bridal shower in May -- but alas, they were sold out of my size, both in-store and online.)  

Mourning:  The demise of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC, or just "the Bay"), which has been around since 1670 (!! -- not a typo!) and played a critical role in my country's early exploration and development (with a particular interest in the fur trade). The Bay department stores, along with Eatons, was one of the pillars of the Canadian retail experience when I was growing up. Hudson's Bay was purchased by an American private equity firm several years ago... and you can probably guess the rest of the story. :(  They've closed several stores in recent years (including the magnificent century-old Bay store in downtown Winnipeg -- which, happily, is being renovated and repurposed for mixed use -- unlike the big Eatons store a few blocks away, which was, sadly, torn down completely), even before this announcement -- and now all the rest will soon be closing (as well as Canadian Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth stores, owned by the same parent company). 

It's not unexpected -- over the past 20-25 years, Canada has lost Eatons, Simpsons, Sears Canada and Nordstrom Canada (not too many years after it entered the market here). It's been a few years since I've been to the flagship store at Queen & Yonge in downtown Toronto (which was at one time a Simpsons store), but I was often there on my lunch hour when I worked downtown. There aren't any Bay stores close by us now, but I always took a quick walk/browse through the (much smaller) store at the mall in our old community whenever we were there for haircuts.  The last time I did so, a few months ago, there were (sadly) a lot of bare shelves and few customers (or staff, for that matter).

I miss department stores. :( 

Procrastinating: I need to call a plumber about a few fixes in both bathrooms. The tub faucet in one bathroom is totally stripped -- has been for more than a year now -- just goes round and round and is difficult to turn off completely, which has rendered that tub/shower completely useless. Thankfully, the spout it is not dripping (right now) -- unlike the same fixture in the master bathroom glassed-in shower enclosure, which has been dripping for MONTHS now, and is creating a lot of mildew on the tiles and caulking, which I am constantly wiping and scrubbing with Clorox. :p  

The sink in that bathroom is also starting to drain more slowly (again -- despite dosing it with baking soda & vinegar, followed by hot water after a few minutes), and I'm afraid it's going to plug up completely -- which is what happened last year right around this time. We called the plumber who takes care of the common plumbing structures in the building then, and he got it draining freely again. I actually asked him to look at the tub/shower faucet then -- he did, but he didn't have the right part to fix it, and said he would get back to me. 

Of course you know what happened -- crickets.  (He was actually back here again with the property manager a few months later, flushing taps after the city turned off the water main for repairs -- and I mentioned it to him again then and asked him to give us a call and let us know when he could come. Again, crickets.)  Do I try calling/messaging him AGAIN and give him one more chance?  Or take my chances with a completely unknown plumber?  (Sigh.) (Why didn't one of the nephews become a plumber?? lol)(One of dh's cousins is actually a plumber! -- but we don't know him very well, and geographically, he's way on the other side of the city/region.) 

Anticipating:  Starting to think about whether we should plan a trip this fall to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary (which is actually in July) -- where we should go (likely somewhere in the UK/Europe), how we should do it, etc.  -- i.e., group tour? pre-package self tour? (dh's cousin's wife recommended the experience they had via Costco Travel last year  -- they did London, Dublin & Paris with their kids) -- or try to plan something out ourselves?? I feel confident figuring things out for travel within Canada, and even to most places in the U.S. -- but Europe, an ocean away, seems positively daunting.  

Also feeling somewhat anxious about the prospect of travelling so far away, at a time when the world is in such a state of upheaval, and the economy is in such a state of flux.  Fall seems like such a long time away; who knows what things will be like then??

But there's never an ideal time, is there??  -- plus (ahem) we're not getting any younger -- if we ever want to see some of these places, we need to do it sooner vs later...!   (Decisions, decisions...!) 

Appreciating/Enjoying:  The days when the weather is nice enough that we can once again open our balcony door, even for a while!    

Trying (and mostly failing...!): To get to bed a little earlier! (Especially if we need to set an alarm and get up early!) When we were working, we were up every morning before 5 AM, so 10 PM was bedtime, with few exceptions. Dh often still turns in early, but lately I've been up till 11, 11:30, 11:45... (I still draw the line at 12 midnight!).    

Noticing: The leaves on the trees are starting to bud out!  (Yay!)    

Hoping: That the weather continues to improve. (Some more sunshine would be great, even if the temperatures take a little while to warm up...!) 

Loving:  Any time we can spend with the great-niblings.  :)  (Never enough, of course...!) 

                              

Feeling: Relieved that all the electioneering is FINALLY over!! (Hopefully for another few years...!)  Relieved that spring FINALLY seems to be on its way!  

Book #3 for April

I just finished reading this book last night. I've decided to take the unusual step of not naming it or the author here (!). The author is a personal friend, and while I'm so happy for her about the publication of this book and want to support her in promoting it, I don't want to tempt fate by having her (or mutual friends) stumble onto this blog, if/when they Google the book!  But you can follow the link above to my review on Goodreads. (There's also a review on StoryGraph.)  

I've rated this book 4 stars.  

This was Book #13 read to date in 2025 (and Book #3 finished in April), bringing me to 29% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books."  

#MicroblogMondays: Today's the day we have our say

It's election day here in Canada!  Tonight's the night we find out who will form the next federal government, and who our new prime minister will be. 

Dh & I already cast our votes at an advance poll on Good Friday:  advance voting was available all Easter long weekend, including Good Friday, Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. In the 45+ years I've been voting (I cast my first-ever vote in the federal election of 1979, when I was 18), I don't think I've ever had to wait in line more than 10 minutes to vote, federally or provincially, and this was no exception. There was a steady stream of people going in & out of the community centre, but no real wait.  

This might be because, unlike American elections, we only vote for one person: our local member of Parliament. We don't vote directly for prime minister (and we don't vote at all for judges, sheriffs, etc.). The leader of the party that wins the most parliamentary seats takes on that role. We still use paper ballots (with pencils provided -- the most cost-efficient option -- although you can use your own pen, if you prefer). So it doesn't take a lot of time to mark an X beside one name and drop your folded ballot through a slot into a sealed container.  The container is opened after the polls close, and votes are hand-counted in the presence of at least two elections officers. Scrutineers from the political parties, representing the local candidates, may also witness the process. It may seem old-fashioned and analog, but it works very well.     

My own experiences notwithstanding, we heard reports of unusually long lineups in some areas of the country, where voters stood patiently in line for an hour or more to mark their ballots. (In an advance poll!)  By Tuesday morning, we learned that a record number of Canadians had cast votes through the advance polls -- 7.3 million. That's about one quarter of eligible voters, and up 25% from the previous record of 5.8 million in 2021.  More than 2 million people voted on Good Friday alone, a single-day record. This bodes well for a good turnout overall. 

Election turnouts have sadly been on the decline over the past 30-ish years. This table from Elections Canada shows the highest turnout since Canada became a country in 1867 was 79.4% in 1958;  the lowest was 58.8% in 2008. The previous (2021) election turned out 62.6% of voters;  the last time turnout cracked the 70%+ mark was 75.3% in both 1984 & 1988.

This has been called "the most important election of our lifetime," and I think that's true. It's certainly the most important since 1988, when the key issue was the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Whichever party and leader win tonight, it's good to see people paying attention, taking action and showing up at the polls in record numbers, particularly when there is so much at stake.

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

"Can't We Be Friends" by Denny S. Bryce & Eliza Knight

I was just a toddler when Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe died of an overdose of sleeping pills in August 1962  -- but her fame was such that I grew up steeped in her story (the marriages! the Kennedys! "Candle in the Wind by Elton John!). I know I read a few bios of her, way back when, and I've enjoyed some of her classic movies, including "Bus Stop," "The Seven-Year Itch," and (especially) "Some Like It Hot."  

Ella Fitzgerald was a presence on many of the TV variety shows that I watched back then (not to mention a memorable TV ad -- "is it live, or is it Memorex?"  lol)  -- but I didn't know a whole lot about her, and I didn't truly appreciate her as an artist until I was in my 20s. In the early 1980s, country/rock singer Linda Ronstadt put on a prom dress and recorded an album of standards with Nelson Riddle Orchestra. I loved it!  I used to make fun of my mother's love of Frank Sinatra and other such music of the 1940s and 1950s;  now I gobbled it up too -- and it was during that time that I (re)discovered Ella. Many of her classic "songbooks" (focusing on the works of Gershwin, Cole Porter, etc.) were being reissued at the time, and I bought several albums/cassettes of her solo and duet work. Older Nephew has them all now, of course (and I doubt he's listened to any of those), but I still have a few CDs of her music. The Christmas album in particular still gets played every year.    

"Can't We Be Friends" by Denny S. Bryce & Eliza Knight is a novel about the seemingly unlikely decade-long friendship that sprang up between Marilyn and Ella. It's the May book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club.

I'd seen the famous photo of the two women together, taken when Marilyn came to see Ella perform at a Los Angeles nightclub. But I didn't realize their relationship went beyond that one evening and mutual admiration.  

Despite their very different backgrounds, they actually had a lot in common. (ALI note:) Both women struggled with fertility issues. Marilyn had several pregnancy losses during her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller, and Fitzgerald adopted a son -- who lived with her aunt, because she was frequently on tour. 

Both women also struggled with their romantic relationships -- Monroe's tempestuous relationship with baseball player Joe DiMaggio, as well as her marriage to Miller. Fitzgerald was divorced from Ray Brown, a bassist in pianist Oscar Peterson's jazz trio, and later had a brief marriage to Thor Larsen, a much-younger Norwegian gigolo (!). Both were ambitious and driven in their careers, and both struggled to assert control, in the face of powerful managers, record companies, movie studios and executives.

This was an interesting story, and I learned a lot about both women (Ella in particular, who -- while famous in her own right -- is probably the lesser known of the two). But the writing didn't really grab me. And while the story was certainly based in fact and historical record, and while Ella & Marilyn certainly knew each other, I suspected a lot of it was likely fictionalized/speculation, including (obviously) the private conversations between the two women, Marilyn's poetry and the texts of the letters they wrote to each other -- and the authors confirm this in their afterword. Readers should be aware of this, and take what they read with a large grain of salt. While these things *could* have happened and been true, we will likely never know for sure, and I found it hard to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story for what it was. Maybe it's because the events of the story take place within living memory, and both women are still well remembered. 

Perhaps the book also suffers because we all know what happened to Marilyn. It's sad to watch her decline through Ella's eyes. 

3 stars on both Goodreads and StoryGraph. 

P.S. Even if you don't read the book, the accompanying playlist on Spotify (!)(including songs by both Ella AND Marilyn!) assembled by the authors is worth a listen! ;)  

This was Book #12 read to date in 2025 (and Book #2 finished in April), bringing me to 27% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books."