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." 

"Miss Buncle Married" by D.E. Stevenson

Back before Christmas, my D.E. Stevenson group read "Miss Buncle's Book," one of the author's early works (review here).  We read "Peter West" together to start off the new year (latest review here), but for our next book (beginning shortly), we'll be returning to visit with Miss Buncle in the 1936 sequel "Miss Buncle Married."  As usual, I read the book first myself -- actually a re-read, as I'd read it back in 2015 (! -- gulp! seriously, 10 years ago now??!).

It's now 1934 (the book ends with celebrations for the 1935 Royal Jubilee of King George V), and the former Miss Barbara Buncle and her new husband/publisher, Arthur Abbott, decide to leave the city and its tiresome social obligations and move to (what they hope will be) a quieter life in the country. 

After a long search, Barbara finds what she thinks is the perfect house -- a fixer-upper in a quaint village called Wandlebury, full of quirky characters to rival those found in her hometown of Silverstream. Arthur's visiting nephew, Sam, soon falls madly in love with neighbouring riding instructor Miss Jeronina (Jerry) Cobbe, niece of Lady Chevis-Cobbe, one of the town's wealthiest citizens.  Alas, Barbara is in possession of a certain piece of information -- which she has promised to keep secret -- that threatens the young couple's future. I don't think it's a real spoiler to reveal that love triumphs in the end (as it always does) -- but not without a few twists & turns along the way.

As I've often said, Stevenson's books are perhaps a little old-fashioned -- products of the era & culture in which they were written -- but they are still well-crafted, funny and charming tales about interesting, realistic, human characters. Miss Buncle remains her charming self here, and this is an enjoyable book overall -- but the sequel does lack the satirical bite of the original (which I rated at 4 stars).   

My original 2015 review of "Miss Buncle Married" here. No stars given then;  I don't believe I was a Goodreads member yet at that point -- but when I did join Goodreads (a year later, I think?), I retroactively assigned it 4 stars.  As I alluded above, I enjoyed this sequel, but it wasn't *quite* up to par with the original (as is often the case with sequels) -- so this time around, I'm giving "Miss Buncle Married" 3.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded up to 4 on Goodreads. 

SPOILER/content warning:  There's a pregnancy announcement at the end of the book. Also a rather eye-rolling reflection by Barbara on the superiority of the married state. (But this WAS the 1930s...!) 

I will count this book as a re-read when the group has finished its collective chapter-by-chapter reading & discussion (in July) -- after which we will tackle the third book in the Miss Buncle trilogy, "The Two Mrs. Abbotts." 

This was Book #11 read to date in 2025 (and Book #1 finished in April), bringing me to 24% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 1 book ahead of schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: Oops! I did it again.... :(

Saturday afternoon, we went with BIL & SIL to BIL & dh's cousin's house (the cousins who have hosted us at their cottage for the past few autumns). He's an accountant and does BIL & SIL's taxes every year. After lunch, he went to work on them in his home office, while the rest of us went for a walk around their subdivision. 

My left knee hasn't been bothering me lately as much as it sometimes does -- but as we walked, it, and my hips, were feeling unusually stiff for some reason. My gait felt a bit off.  I remember thinking to myself, "Pay attention. Be careful. You wouldn't want to trip and fall in front of everyone and create a scene..."   

Famous last words.  

It all happened very fast. (Doesn't it always?) The toe of my shoe caught in the dirt along the side of the road -- I tripped -- and down I went. I remember thinking briefly, "Well at least my face didn't hit the ground" -- as it did exactly that. :p   

Crap. :(  

Everyone gathered around me, asking if I was OK and helping me to my feet. I could taste dirt in my mouth and could feel bits of sand crunching between my teeth. I felt around them with my tongue, and thankfully, they were all present and accounted for and in one piece. Dh handed me a kleenex because I had dirt on my nose and face, and my lip was bleeding a little and starting to swell up. I had a scrape on the palm of my left hand that was bleeding too. My left knee (the one that bothers me) was sore too.   

When we got back to the house, I went into the bathroom to wash my dirty hands & face and inspect the damage. (I even had dirt up my nostrils!)  My left knee had a mild scrape on it, plus a few abrasions from where my jean leg dug into the skin.  The cousin's daughter was home from medical school (!) and got me a few bandaids and a cold pack to put on my swelling lip. 

Overall, though, I was (once again!) very lucky. This fall was, on balance, not as serious as the one I took in December. The swelling on my upper lip had almost completely disappeared by yesterday morning, although it's still a bit tender from the cut. My upper front tooth (just below the swelling on my lip) still feels just a teeny bit weird/sensitive, but I think that's mostly my anxiety running amok. (I keep probing it with my tongue, which no doubt exacerbates the feeling.)(I suppose I could call our dentist and request an appointment to get it checked out -- but I hate the idea of having to drive all the way into midtown Toronto, when I'm 97% sure it's okay...)  By yesterday evening, I could feel some mild stiffness/soreness settling into my lower back, neck, and right wrist and upper right arm and shoulders.  But again, it could have been SO much worse...! 

SIL said she thought I was dragging my foot a little because of my bum knee, and that that probably caused me to trip. I also think maybe it was my shoe might have been a factor?  I have very wide feet, and I often have to buy my shoes a little longer than I really need (a half-size larger), so that I can get my feet into them! And I've noticed my balance in recent years is not as good as it has been. :(  (I need to get back to yoga class and work on that...) 

It wasn't the first time I've tripped and/or taken a nasty tumble in recent years. Hopefully, it will be the last (but unfortunately, I kind of doubt that...). 

But it sure does make you feel old and vulnerable. :(  

(The fall aside, we did have a nice visit with our cousins!) 

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

#MicroblogMondays: An emotional weekend

This was an emotional weekend. (Perhaps appropriately? the weather was grey & gloomy, which added to the mood.)  

Saturday afternoon, I attended a Zoom memorial for fellow childless blogger Bamberlamb, who died on Valentine's Day and whose funeral was on St. Patrick's Day. It was a private event hosted by the Childless Collective community, where Bamberlamb & I co-host(ed) the Childless After Babyloss sub-group. As my contribution to the program, I spoke a little about how I got to know her as a blogger first, and then read a poem that came to mind, when I learned that her husband had asked people to wear purple to her funeral -- her favourite colour. It was a sad event, but also comforting, with laughs as well as tears. I think she would have liked it.  :)   

Later that afternoon, I watched the taped gala from the recent World Figure Skating Championships on CBC. The competition was held in Boston, a city that lost a number of promising young skaters in the Washington, D.C. plane crash on Jan. 29th, and several of the gala skaters dedicated their performances to them.  A highlight was an emotional performance by Maxim Naumov (who was not among the competitors, but was invited to perform), who lost both his parents, Evgenia Shishkova & Vadim Naumov, in the crash.  (They were also his coaches.  They skated for the USSR/Russia, won the world pairs championships in 1994, and later moved to the U.S. and coached at the Boston club.)  He got a long and well-deserved standing ovation.

And then yesterday, dh & I drove about an hour east and south of here to attend a celebration of life for a friend who died on St. Patrick's Day after a long illness -- the same day Bamberlamb's funeral was being held in the UK. (I wrote about that confluence of events at the time, here.)  We got to know M. & her husband 22 years ago (gulp) when they came to our pregnancy loss support group after the loss of their baby son. We hadn't seen them -- or anyone from our old group -- in 10-15 years, but the bonds you form in groups like that are pretty strong, and we've stayed in touch on social media. (Already, I'm seeing comments she'd made on old posts of mine in my Facebook Memories.)  

There was no service or program -- just a social time together, with lots of food and displays of photos and M.'s beautiful craft work -- including a lovely plaque, memorializing the baby son they lost, 22 years ago.  And, on a table at the back, surrounded by a wreath of flowers, the urn containing her ashes. I patted the top of it with tears in my eyes and said, "Ya done good, M.  I hope you're finally getting some rest."  She was just 52. :(  

There were a LOT of people there, but we got there early, and her husband greeted us with big hugs. Obviously, he and his (other) kids were busy greeting people -- there was a near-continuous lineup at the door -- but another couple we'd known through the group arrived about a half-hour later, and we spent the next hour chatting and catching up. We commented (and I said to M's husband too) that it was a shame that it took a funeral to bring us all together again. And as we were leaving, we agreed that we should not wait for the NEXT funeral for another visit!  

In the car heading home, dh said, "I'm so glad we went."  Me too. 

Life is short -- way too short for some. :(  Treasure the people you love. Make the effort. You won't regret it. 

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

Odds & ends for the weekend

• I had kind of forgotten that Liza Minnelli is "one of us."  Then I got watching a documentary about her this week, from "American Masters" on PBS -- "Liza:  A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story" -- and they included a whole segment about how much she had wanted to have children, her multiple miscarriages, and how much she doted on her friends' children (and, later, grandchildren).There was a lot about her life that I'd forgotten (or never knew). She's a legend for a reason. Worth a watch, if you can find it! 
• Princess Beatrice of England recently wrote for Vogue UK about the premature birth of her daughter Athena in January. 
• In The Atlantic, Ashley Parker ponders "Miscarriage and Motherhood: What having a baby taught me about the illusion of control."  (Gift link.) 
• Like I needed one more book to add to my "to-read" list....!  Nevertheless, I was intrigued by this (mostly glowing) New York Times review of "Firstborn," a pregnancy loss memoir by Lauren Christensen. (NYT gift link.)  
• Lisa Kissane grapples with the eternal question of labels: "Am I Childless, Childfree or a Proxy-Parent? And why does it even matter?" 
• In her Substack "Mad Woman," Amanda Montei ponders the "is motherhood good or bad" debate -- and a recent iteration, featuring the singer Chappell Roan. 
• The whole piece is worth a read -- but I especially appreciate that it includes a reference to women without children -- and the acknowledgement that ours is a perspective that often goes unheard:

The latest Chappell Roan pile-on highlights one aspect of this conversation that is frequently unheard: discussions about maternal representation tend to dismiss, moralize, erase, even pathologize the experiences of women without kids, and even more the experiences of queer women without kids.

...women without children are also frequently blamed for other women’s attitudes toward and experiences of motherhood, and for everything from a failing economy, progressive politics, toxic internet culture, and sociopathy (which, to be clear, occurs at a rate of 3:1 men to women). Such claims are echoed, too, in neoliberal writings, usually by white women with certain economic privileges, who claim motherhood is inherently transformative and transcendent, and that images of liberated women without kids are somehow damaging the motherhood scene.

Care, to be clear, is transformative. And in our lonely, isolated cultural moment, we need more of it. But one need not be a mother to care for other people, or even for children.

• Also on the subject of the Chappell Roan kerfuffle:  Lane Anderson from "Matriarchy Report" asks her readers, "Can we talk about how to create solidarity among women, beyond the hot takes?" 
• What I love about this post is that Anderson actually realizes the motherhood debate is not a binary (i.e., it's the best thing/worst thing). (AND she invites readers without kids to share their perspective in the comments! -- which I did!):  

...But there’s also a third story at play here that’s worth considering:

Another story of American Motherhood/Non Motherhood is the single/child-free woman who is a Childless Cat Lady, is selfish, self-centered, doesn’t get it, and is wasting her life and potential. This is embodied in this case by Chappell Roan herself.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually do think it’s worth listening to what young women who don’t have children have to say about their perceptions of American Motherhood and the discourse thereof. 

• The matter of "what should I do with/will happen to my stuff when I'm gone?" weights heavily on many childless people. For me, as a genealogist, the question of what to do with all the stuff I've accumulated over years related to my family history is a particular concern. Even if none of my cousins or their kids find this stuff interesting (right now, anyway...!), it's quite possible one of THEIR kids or grandkids might. And why reinvent the wheel, right?  So much of what I've been able to build today began with a few documents carefully preserved by my grandparents & their siblings, and the stories they told me.  
• So I was pleased to read in a recent update email from the Ontario Genealogical Society (I'm a longtime member) that they are planning a new "legacy service" which would allow members to donate or bequeath their genealogical research to be digitized (for a fee) in order to preserve it and to share it with others. 
• I was thinking that if no one in my family was interested, I would donate my collection to the museum in the Minnesota county where my mother grew up (if they're interested -- and assuming the border is still open by then... (!) ). They already do a lot of family history stuff, and already have some items related to my family. 
• But it's nice to have another option to consider too.  
• Lisa Sibbett at "The Auntie Bulletin" asks a common question in the childless/free community:  "Who Will Care for You in Your Old Age, If Not Your Kids?" Jody Day's "alterkin" project is highlighted!  
• Jill Filipovic highlights a new study from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine that shows the number of women dying after being denied life-saving and health-preserving abortions, post-Roe v Wade being overturned, is likely far higher than thought. Excerpt: 

Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed Republican legislators to ban abortion in most of the states they control, the public narrative around abortion bans was simple: Make abortion illegal, and you get dangerous illegal abortions. And that remains true. But what much of the public didn’t seem to understand is that if you make abortion illegal, you get more dangerous pregnancies. 

• From the Washington Post: "Is listening to a book cheating?" (Let the arguments begin!  lol)  
• My personal viewpoint:  I wouldn't call it "cheating" -- but I find it hard to think of it as actually reading. Nothing against people who enjoy audiobooks (anything that gets people reading/enjoying books is a good thing!). Personally, I feel like I need to actually read a book to really absorb it.  
• (It's the same with podcasts: I enjoy podcasts, but I find I really have to focus my attention on what's being said -- no or minimal multi-tasking -- or else my mind will wander and then half an hour's gone by and I have no idea what I just heard!) 
• On a related note -- my L.M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group reads & discusses LMM's books, chapter by chapter -- and each chapter is read on video by a volunteer group member. (I've done several chapter readings myself.)  I do enjoy listening to these -- and reading along with them at the same time. 
• Also in The Atlantic:  Daniel Engber writes about "The Evermaskers" -- people who remain covid-cautious, five years after the pandemic began. (Gift link.) 
• (I would describe myself as covid cautious -- I am certainly far more cognizant of the risks and (still) take more precautions than almost everyone I know, although I am not QUITE as vigilant as some of the people in the article, and have been venturing into more places recently without a mask -- so long as there aren't too many other people around.)