Down Memory Lane….

One of the things which this pandemic/quarantine/end of the world scenario has done, which I think is actually much to the good, is the reflection, the blessings counting, that’s been happening.

For me, and with a specific purpose in mind, much reflexion has happened because I am finally sorting through a raft of photos I have been sitting on for nearly 20 years.  These are pictures “rescued” at a time of upheaval for my family and just put away for some other time, when there was time.  Besides those photos, of course, I have my own.  So many of them!!  I had no idea we were such prolific picture takers, but it’s been joyful to look at them, remember the people, the time.  Even when it’s been a little sad, because some of the people have been lost, the warmth in my heart is real.

How does the generation that doesn’t know photographic prints ‘get’ the sheer pleasure of pictures one enjoys leafing through albums, or finds rooting around in old shoe boxes?  I snap moments on my smart phone all the time, of course, but holding a print… There is a bit of magic in that that just doesn’t come across a fingerprint begrimed, handheld screen.

Many of my photos are based on place, or rather, one place.  The Cottage.  Which is actually two cottages and a pop-up tent trailer.  My family has owned land along a lake shoreline since the turn of the last century.  The first cottage my Great Aunt owned has long-since passed into another family’s hands, but my grandfather wisely bought some land up the shoreline from her during WWII, and four successive generations since have been loving that spot with all our hearts.

For a couple of my siblings, that love makes do as a memory of glorious days past, while for a couple of us it’s those lovely days when we have the time to travel there and immerse ourselves in water, sun, and memories we make and re-live.  For my two youngest brothers however, and their families, being at The Cottage is what the summer season, which runs from May to October, means.

So I have been looking at the photos of The Cottage, and the first cottage where we were children down the bay from the one on the point.  Pictures of grandparents, parents, uncles, cousins, friends, and us.  I have been remembering the moments, the activities, the sun and wind, the smell, the food and laughter.

I do not feel quarantined when holding these photos, these memories.  Social distancing is not in that moment.  The border between where I live and where my heart is has opened so I may come home again.

Other photos have much the same effect, of course.  There are many pictures of the loved children of dear friends, children at play or in Hallowe’en costumes or showing off silly faces covered in chocolate or sauces.  Children who now share photos of their children with chocolate on their faces, and I am left wondering how time actually works to have wrought such changes.

I love re-living a few adventures with my husband, who has always been a wonderful companion on all journeys, quarantined or not.  I have been chuckling at pictures of people met during our first week of married life in Florida and with whom I share friendship today, and further photos of friends made at all the stops on our marriage journey across 4 states, two countries and 18 homes, telling myself the stories that make up our share experiences.  And I am finding the one-of moments, barely remembered but suddenly brought back to life in my mind, especially sweet to consider.

All of this has been part of creating photo albums for my siblings and my uncle.  I want them to re-live, to savour, to quietly celebrate those people, places, and events of our shared life.  I am hoping to ship the albums off in early November, with the hope they will arrive for Christmas.  Given the US Post Office right now.. who knows.

These are my memories, but theirs as well.  This is my life, and a little part of theirs as well. This is how we can socially distance but be together.  It’s made the end-of-the-world less end-ish.

 

October sunset where my heart lives…

Six Steps, taken at a different family cottage, and then Six Steps with Ross 35 years later.

Staycation… such a word!

This summer… this year… so uprooted, and yet deeply planted at home. Nothing is what we usually do, and yet I’m still making jams and pickles. No concerts, no music camp, and yet we’re both engaging in a new musical adventure (which is possibly dangerous to your ears, but we’re having fun!). No cottage, no beach, and yet we “staycationed” at a state park with a lake and a beach!

Even using the word “staycation” is nothing I would ever have considered saying or applying to my life and yet, here we are.

There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of novels being written right now about this pandemic, the virus threatening the world. After living it, I’m not interested in reading it. I want my life has always been, and yet this is where we’re at right now.

Excuse me will you? I’ve got another “staycation” to plan and some cherries to pit. More jam!

The peace of moonlight on a lake….

The Puddle You See… is me

Please don’t take this as ‘just so Canadian‘ but oh my, I prefer colder weather.

The heat wave that started about a year ago, or sometime last week, I’ve lost track, is making me… dull… droopy… dusty.  I look like the daisies in our backyard, but without the cheerfulness they still have.

Summer means wonderful, local fresh fruits and veg.  Summer means making jams & pickles.  Summer means beach time and barbecues.  Summer means sweat, often in places one didn’t know sweat would happen ;-).

So, back to the basement office which is freezing cold.  Which feels like home!!

 

Trolls, Troubled Minds, and Liars

A good belly laugh is usually something to be shared, but when the reason behind the laughter is too fraught to explain… let me just laugh and we’ll go on.

I was “trolled” recently over old, old, frickin’ ancient stuff and I didn’t get mad.  I wasn’t upset, I didn’t feel like crying, I not only didn’t want to throw something, I couldn’t even be bothered to think what I could throw!

If these same ridiculous comments had been thrown my way some 13, 14 years ago… yeah, I would have been all those things, and there would be pillows all over the floor.  But not this time and I hope not ever again.  You see, I have finally figured it out and I believe it:  this is their problem, not mine.

First of all, calling me a fat bitch and wishing that Covid would get me is Grade Three mean.  It’s not clever, it’s not pushing forward an argument worth having.  Secondly, bringing up really old garbage as if it’s today’s fresh news is… God, I don’t know what it is.  Juvenile?  Inane?  Wrong?  Whatever.  Living rent free in someone else’s head is actually kinda cool, as Hillary will tell you about the luxurious flat she has in Donald’s head 😉

Do I like being trolled?  No.  Do I want it to happen again?  No.  Will it bother me ever, ever, ever?  Never.  I’m just Billy Goat Gruff over here, and I’ll keep crossing every damn bridge I find.  Y’all have an empty day now, R.

 

 

 

 

 

And The Job Hunt Goes On…

Well, I’m still looking.  I would not have thought it so hard to find work in an economy I am repeatedly told is booming!  But I’m stymied and now I’m becoming a little frustrated.

I’m sure it’s me.  I’m sure the fact that I’m well-educated, diversely skilled, highly experienced (even in esoteric fields such as theatre or magazine writing), and darn fun to be around the workplace is making this search so challenging.  Or maybe it’s that I haven’t been looking for a “powerhouse” job, just something around 20, 25 hours a week, answering phones and handling mail, simple things like that.  People see my cv and I *know* they think “She’s run businesses!  How long will she last answering my phones?”

I am *great* on the phone!  I *love* answering phones!  And I’m good with mail, and watering plants (well, maybe not that one – brown thumb at home), and making coffee (as long as you want it strong), and remembering where you put those notes, and running errands both professional and (some) personal (there are a few uncrossable lines in there), and generally being a Helpful Hannah.  I *was* Executive Elizabeth.  I could still be Executive Elizabeth, but going back to an office-y job was supposed be about a more regular source of income (freelance writing is not a big cash supplier, at least not right off the bat), but also about getting out and meeting people.  On that personal, ego level, I don’t need Elizabeth’s path – I want Hannah’s.

However, given the silence, like ‘dead of the night not even the crickets are out’ silence, from sending my resume out into the world, I’ve come to the decision I need to “up my game”.  I need to swing into Elizabeth’s lane and learn to enjoy the speed there.

So today I sent off my third Elizabeth application form, with requisite cover letter, resume, and (because of the nature of the work) writing samples!  I’m kind of excited about this, and really do want an interview, a chance to show off my self, my skills, give some personal reasons why I really could be the *perfect* person for this job.  I’m also a little apprehensive.  The application process was long, bureaucratic, and not just a little repetitive but if one is looking to be an Elizabeth in a bureaucratic setting, one goes with the flow.

Still, it’s the work I want.  It’s work I have done, work I love doing, work which in some ways as I continue to research and start drafting my second book, I’m doing right now.  It’s work I believe in.

The question is: Will they believe in me?  When they read the resume and see the list of experiences, when they start playing games with the calendar to try to figure out how old I am, when they look at the bi-country nature of my background, will they believe in me?

Elizabeth or Hannah, I just need a chance to sit down with a would-be employer and tell them to their face, “You can believe in me.  I can do this job, and you’re going to wonder how you ever worked without me.”

Keep your fingers crossed??

4th Quarter Job Hunting… Oy!

It’s been a couple of years (well, five) since I’ve worked in an office setting but I’m looking to get back into the fray.  Or behind the desk.  Or something.

My work life has been, to put it kindly, a hodgepodge of things, different jobs in different industries, with a variety of skills.  Indeed so many I simply cannot write a short resumé. I have rather created an “Executive Resumé Summary”.  It lists formal education, some work experience, and some personal-cum-professional skills at the end.

At first, it felt a bit of a cheat to prepare a c.v. in this fashion, but as varied as my work experience has been, as wide a collection of skills and interests as I have, it seemed the best thing.  And of course, if someone is smart enough to see that there is a really good worker in those few sentences, I can quickly send off the multi-page version which provides further, glorious, details.

My real challenge is that I’m not seeking a ‘career path’ position.  In the words of the infamous t-shirt, been there, done that.  What I want, what I’m seeking, is a job that requires intelligence, honest effort, some creativity, quite a bit of loyalty (going both ways, please), and pays decently.  Oh, and working remotely would be perfect, but part-time in an office would be good too.  Dare I hope that someone out there is smart enough to read my summary and see that I have all those skills, and no one has to teach me how to answer a phone properly, or write a decent letter, or show up on time and not beg off early.

I need to work — for income, for sanity — but I also still need my life.  I was lucky enough to be able take time out of the 9-5 world to write my book, and I have found my way back through a really tough time with my health, and I need to face the next phase, without giving up the things, the time, the people who matter to me.

My university crush, Aubrey, told me he calls this time of our life “the 4th quarter”.  For him, that’s meant retirement.  For me, I hope it’s a new challenge.  Burning down the world is not my goal.  Being a good person on whom an employer can rely is.  The thing is — have the goal posts on work been moved and I’m just kicking balls into the wind?

I’ll keep you posted.

 

In Remembrance, In Love

Such a long, slow slide from winter to spring this year.  I still haven’t washed or put away all the heavy sweaters yet; the cotton ones don’t seem to be enough!  The winter jackets are in the cedar boxes, but the scarves and even a toque still wait for washing and blocking before hibernating.  The afghan rests on the back of the settee as one’s ‘toeses may frozes’ when watching Netflix.  And while the bedroom window is permitted to be open, an inch or two, and the heat most definitely has been turned off until October, I am not allowed to change from flannel to percale sheets yet.

Some of my bed mates like to be cosy!

Perhaps it is because spring has only inched her way back into our lives.  Perhaps it is the weekly notes and phone calls I receive about another friend, another family member facing accidents, illness, dying.  Perhaps it’s simply another and more obvious sign that I am growing older, much against my will, but there is a wistfulness to this season I don’t remember in other springs.

The hyacinths were lovely, the tulips are slow in developing.  The magnolia trees and cherry blossoms have been brilliantly showy.  The children are thrilled to playing in the streets again.  We are planning our first weekend at the cottage on wheels.  But I am still wistful.

I feel the day zoom to a close even as the early morning robins beat the rising sun to wake me.   I am watching the minutes rush by even as I look for the chestnut tree to finally come into all its leafy glory.  I watch our young neighbour gleefully zip down the sidewalk on motorised scooter even as my mind’s eye sees him pedalling his so-much-smaller ‘race’ car.  I am still wistful.

I look across the breakfast table at my husband of 42 years today and remember every detail from 06:45 to 01:30 of that day and night.  I remember my father knock, knock, knocking on my door and telling me to get up, I was getting married and he was pretty sure my mother, who was still sound asleep, needed me to do something.  I remember running around all that afternoon, doing last minutes errands, nearly being smashed by a truck as I left a parking lot, going to the hairdresser on my own (which was oddly lonely).  I remember arriving back home to find a refrigerator and even the service porch full of food for the reception that was to come in a few hours but absolutely nothing for the bride-to-be (I was told the pizzas were particularly yummy).  I remember a phone call, just before running upstairs to bathe and dress, from US Customs, assuring me we were really were going to be allowed to bring all our wedding gifts into the country, and then asking me when the happy occasion was.  “In about two hours.”  “Oh.  Well, then.  I’m glad I didn’t put off this call until Monday morning!”  I remember every single person who celebrated with us there that evening, and especially those who are not ‘there’ any more, and I remember some who were not there then that I wished then and now could have been, and I remember every single one of the funny and odd and sweet things that happened or were said to me, to us, that day and evening.  And perhaps it is these memories I should credit the most for why I am still wistful.

This spring has made me feel time is moving too fast, even as it moves so slowly to bring sunshine and flowers and fully-leafed trees back to us.  I truly am enjoying what is now, which brings pleasure and even moments of joy.  But I am missing what was then, and so I am, and perhaps in some way will always be, still wistful.

because I carried white roses that evening….

 

 

 

Dear David Lebovitz

Mother’s Day is coming up and my in-law family is gathering for a late lunch/early dinner.  Not as many people as there have been; two branches from the 3rd and 4th generations have other plans, but there will be enough people at my sister-in-law’s home to have fun and, as always, good food.

I tell you this because I am in charge of dessert.  Well, I volunteered because I had just finished a pot of coffee when I consulted with here, and I thought beating and whipping and baking would be fun.  Also, Paul Hollywood & Mary Berry.

When I recovered from the caffeine hangover, I realised I had no idea what to make.  My stand-bys have stood-by often for this group, plus I was already on tap for baking up a batch of my husband’s new favourite cookies.  The batter has many ingredients, and makes a lot of cookies (5 dozen plus, which for two people is A Lot of Cookies) so I needed something that wasn’t going to demand a great deal more of my time, and further empty my baking cupboard.

You don’t know this about me, David – you don’t mind if I call you David, do you? I feel we’re already intimate friends because I follow your blog assiduously – but I was not myself for about 18 months.  I fell ill and in the course of the treatment, I was injured. Recovering from those experiences, plus regaining my strength, and getting my mind back, I wasn’t me.  (Just as an aside, once you hit the Swingin’ Sixties, general anaesthesia is a bitch; avoid it if at all possible, and especially in repeated lengthy doses.)

Not being me for 18 months meant not a lot of time in the kitchen, and what time I was in there was limited.  And so were the cooking choices I made.  Having strength, the ability to read and remember, and just plain joy in being back in the kitchen has lead me to try things I never had before.  I mean, I made a Bara Brith!

So, as I’m trying to convince myself I can do something swish for eight people for dessert for Mother’s Day, your latest blog post crossed by in-box.  It wasn’t about dessert, as you probably know, but it reminded me of where you’re rooted – in the chocolate bar.  Kidding…but I really did love “The Sweet Life”.

So I look up what dessert-y things are archived and I see ‘ice creams’.  And I think about this past Sunday when we went to Churn, which is the ice cream shop attached to Lloyd’s Taco Factory (not really a factory, just a great walk-up restaurant. Also, ‘Lloyd’, for tacos? Loco name, great food.). One of the ice cream choices was a sandwich – homemade cookie, their ice cream – and they looked so good.  I had had my heart set on a cup of coffee ice cream and a churro so I went with that, and it was a delicious choice, but I was already plotting to come back for the sandwich.

Which I still may do but… not until this homemade batch is gone.

Are you bored yet, David?  Sometimes my stories get a little long and meander-y.  When I’d be on the third or fourth detour in my tales, my father used to imitate Archie Bunker when he got frustrated with Edith’s story telling.  Just as funny when my dad did it.  But let’s get back on track.

I found a recipe, your recipe, for the Easiest Ice Cream Ever.  It really was easy to make, and because it doesn’t need an ice cream maker, I could put off worrying about the noises mine is making.  Sort of like a chorus of teeth grinders accompanied by a small cement truck.  So that alone would have lead to me to give this recipe a go, but the combination of chocolate and banana made me smile before I even began.

I bet the ice cream would have been even easier to make if I had thought a little about bowls and cups and booze before I got started.

This is why I brought up being ‘out of it’ because I never would have just started a brand new recipe Before Illness without reading it all the way through and creating the mise en place (which I only do for new recipes & Chinese food).  However, After Illness (B.I. & A.I.), different story.  Sometimes.

For example, the small matter of Bailey’s.  Don’t have it.  Rarely have it.  Also, don’t have dark rum; husband drinks the light stuff.  And I decided to double the recipe because I had two bananas that were perfect for blending, which meant I needed even more of the liquids.  Given that this is supposed to be the Easiest Ice Cream Ever, and given that I was still wearing the t-shirt from yesterday I threw on this morning when the doorbell rang at 8 o’bloody clock and it was spotted with vodka sauce (I make a nice one) from supper last night, and given that ‘Easy’ did not include showering, changing, and going to the liquor store, I decided the creme de cacao leftover from the pear, ginger, and creme de cacao jam I made last fall would work just as well.  Except, of course, I didn’t have 180ml of it left!  I did, however, have a bottle of Grand Marnier hiding in the back of the cupboard so I filled up the required amount with that. And then I thought “…but Bailey’s is creamy, and he’s calling for milk”, so I decided to use table cream, 18% butterfat content, for which I have to go back home to Ontario (Canada) once a month or wait for family to come visit bearing litres of cream, rather than milk.

So I’ve combined the cream and the creme de cacao and the Grand Marnier into a measuring cup, and I’m melting dark chocolate chips (also from Canada because, and don’t tell my American friends, the chips in stores here just aren’t that wonderful), and I’m smooshing bananas in a medium bowl with a fork.  And then I look at the recipe again and see that I was supposed to melt the chocolate in the milk/cream whereas mine is sitting in a measuring cup with the booze.  Sigh.  So I carefully, slowly pour the dairy/booze into the warm melting chocolate, whisking as I go to make sure it blends and doesn’t leave chocolate lumps.  Now it’s time to mix this chocolate mix with the bananas which, I gotta say, David, aren’t willing to just be mixed.

The whisk isn’t doing the job, so I get out the hand mixer, and after putting the beaters in, twice because I never get them in the correct side on the first try, and using the low setting – let me emphasise this, ON LOWEST LOW – I try to ‘mix’ the soft, pre-smooshed bananas in the bowl with the chocolate liquid deliciousness.

Now that I’ve changed my shirt, and wiped off three cupboards and the counter top, and prayed there’s still enough mixture left for the all the ice cream I need to make (eventually) 8 ice cream sandwiches, I still didn’t know how to blend this stuff together.  As I was wiping chocolate spray off my 25-year old immersion blender hanging above the work area, I said “merde”.  I use the damn thing almost every day but today I forget I have it?

Worked a treat.  Leaving me with one measuring cup, one fork, two beaters, one immersion blender, one double boiler, one medium mixing bowl, and a t-shirt to wash up.  Not quite as easy as I might have thought, given the name, but my husband thoroughly approves of the taste.  Even if I did forget the rum.

The mixture is in the freezing now doing it’s freezing thing.  And as soon as I finish this letter to you, I’m going to bake the cookies (seriously, the best-tasting, more-work chocolate & toffee chip cookies ever; the extra time is worth it) so they will be the right temperature for assembling and wrapping the ice cream sandwiches for Sunday.  If you’re interested, I’ll post pictures of the completed goodies.

In the meantime, thanks for your wonderful blog.  I have longed for Paris all my adult life, and you make it seem to close, so vivid, so delicious, I know I must get there. Someday.

 

 

 

November Has 30 Days. Sigh.

It’s two-thirds gone and I can hardly wait for it to be over.  November is not my idea of month.  It’s more like a jail term for the infraction of loving blue skies and colour.

I have a friend who LOVES November.  In part because his birthday is in November, but also in part because where he lives (Australia), the weather is warmer and sunnier and the cricket season is underway.  I think it’s why we broke up; well, complete opposite ideas about November and the fact that he was a cricketer.  (If you can’t explain how a game is played in three sentences or fewer, including how scoring happens, however much I love you, we have a relationship challenge.)

Anyway, to return the to dull greyness that is November here… I stand at the kitchen window and look out at the sad piles of leaves, sunk down by sleet and rain, and remember what they were once, hanging on the maple and oak trees in the neighbourhood.  I watch clouds, heavy with precipitation, scudding across the sky, hiding any hope of sunshine, thinking they seem very satisfied with their gloominess.  I watch the barometer fall, almost as fast as the thermometer, and wonder if it’s actually possible to sleep for 29 days.

I would wake up for (American) Thanksgiving.  Pumpkin pie, doncha know??  Plus, eat enough turkey, and you just fall right back to sleep again!

My girlhood hero, Anne Shirley (she of “Green Gables” fame) agrees with me, but Lucy Maud Montgomery puts it so much better than I:

“November is usually such a disagreeable month as if the year had suddenly found out she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it.”  

Some might think I’m railing against November because it means another year is slipping to an end, and as I grow older, there are fewer and fewer Novembers to come to me.  But if that hypothesis were true, I would feel the same about December, more so perhaps, because it is the end of the year.  December, though is bright.  Even if there are snow squalls and icy roads, bone-chilling temperatures and outrageous heating bills, there is a brightness to a month that encourages us to put out and turn on our brightest lights.  We fill our homes with the smell of pine and gingerbread.  We spend our time and money looking for ways to please our family and friends with gifts, not to mention a little something or two for ourselves.  We eat too much and drink too much, and love every mouthful.  And even if we think we can’t stand the holiday season, there is always, always, one moment, one sight, which makes us think… ‘so this is how the Grinch’s heart grew so big’.  From the movie:

“I’m all toasty inside. And I’m leaking.”  

I think we’re all looking forward to becoming toasty inside… As soon as we get over November.

 

And just so you know…  this is a month and a vista I could live with always… Thanks for sharing it over (Canadian) Thanksgiving, Michael & Rita.

Oh, God. Yes, Christmas.

I am thinking about Christmas.

Yes, I know Hallowe’en was just a few hours ago – I still have bags of Swedish berries and gummy bears to prove it.  Give us until Saturday and they’ll be allll gone.  Unless, of course, we stock up on half-price Hallowe’en chocolates and candy.  Which we have been known to do.  Sigh.

Anyway, I have now seen three different major retailers’ first Christmas shopping ads on television.  The first (Best Buy) I actually saw on the 29th!  Different kind of sigh.  I know that businesses often live and die by the holiday season, I get that.  But seriously, unless you sell things that can be given away as Hallowe’en loot too, I don’t think you’re doing your corporate image any good by starting the commercial Christmas season so early.

Beyond the advertising, a facebook friend posted a notice last week that there were only 9 more Mondays to Christmas.  Like Mondays didn’t have enough issues….

However, all this was a good kick in the butt to remind me that annual Christmas letter has to be done.  You’re all going, no! no!  not a Christmas letter! but yes, we do have one. This is because we are incredibly lazy sods who don’t do a better job of staying in touch with friends and family during the year.  To our credit, I think, we don’t do a lot of bragging about our achievements through the course of the year, which could be in part because we don’t actually achieve that much any more, what with getting older and all the stuff that goes along with that.  I mean, no one really wants to know we both managed to sleep through the night without visiting the head at least 10% of the time, do they??

It also reminded me that I need to do a “Dear Santa” list.  I’ve been doing these every year since Year One.  I don’t remember actually mailing any letters to Santa, but I knew then, and I know now, that the spirit of the letters would reach Father Christmas just fine.  I also don’t remember having extravagant lists as a child, but I have veered into fantasy on my adult lists for quite awhile.

For example, for about 20 years, I would ask for Al Pacino for Christmas.  Just for Christmas, or maybe Boxing Day, but not any longer than that.  I didn’t want to keep him, I just wanted to play with him for a while.

(And no, not that way.  Jeez, my friends have prurient minds.  I wanted to talk about acting and life in New York and “Dog Day Afternoon” which movie I will never get out of my mind.)

I often ask for Paris now, and one year I wanted Marc Anthony while just recently I was hoping to find Dame Judi Dench’s phone number in my Christmas stocking, so I could call her and we could chat about the diversity of acting in the UK, about riding elephants, and does she think ribald English humour translates well to America (I think we Canadians get it, but I’m not sure about Americans; I’d like to hear what she’s heard).

However, on the more practical side, my gift list is about books.  There cannot be enough books in my life, and this year there seems to be an even larger pool from which to choose.  I just saw Charlie Rose’s interview of Nancy Koehn and her book, “Forged in Crisis”.  She’s a professor at Harvard and not only did her interview with Charlie inspire me to seek out her book, but I want to audit her classes!  She was so fast in her responses, so well-spoken, thoughtful, erudite, and not a ‘you know’ or ‘like, um’ in the entire 20 minutes!

My twitter friend, Hope Dellon, who works at St Martin’s Press is away from her desk for a little while, but I hope she’ll be back in time to search her brain for other book ideas… not all necessarily from St Martin’s!  She and I share a taste for crime novels, especially written by women, which makes sense as she’s Louise Penny’s editor.  And there’s another bunch of books I want – to fill out the gaps in my Penny/Three Pines/Armand Gamache collection.  Hope and I also enjoy Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels; I only have three in hand and could stand to round out the collection.  Anyway, keen to. hear what she thinks should be on my list.

I also want to find a copy of “Winnie The Pooh” that DOESN’T have the Disney illustrations!  I’d like every book both David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin have written, even the ones I’ve read.

I’d also like “The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro” which is edited by my (older) cousin, David Staines, as opposed to my other cousin, David Staines, or even my brother, David Staines.  She is a favourite author, but I don’t want this particular book just because  David edited it; if someone asks me about it, spotting it in my hands or on my bookshelf, I will have a chance to tell my ‘how I met Alice Munro’ story all over again.  Good story, that.

Anyway, it’s a balmy 63/17 degrees right now, so I’m hard pressed to get into Christmas thinking… maybe if I make some gingerbread men… or put on some carols!  Giant sigh….

How many Mondays now until Christmas???