Blessed be the series ;)

 (**CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE TV SERIES & THE ORIGINAL BOOKS**) 

The sixth and final season of "The Handmaid's Tale" reached its conclusion earlier this week. I've spent a lot of time since then browsing related posts and comments on social media (I'm clearly a glutton for punishment!  lol)  -- and I have some thoughts...! 

• Several of my predictions for the last few episodes of the season were right! 
• ...But not all of them. The finale was much lower-key than I had anticipated, and a lot more people survived than I anticipated. Which is not a bad thing (especially if you're trying to make viewers happy!), if not entirely realistic.
• Janine not only being freed but also getting Charlotte/Angela back was one of those things I didn't think was entirely realistic, particularly in the way it unfolded (so abrupt, no explanation??) -- but it certainly made people happy. As many commenters said, if anyone in the series deserved a happy ending, it was Janine! 
• I saw Alexis Bledel (Emily) listed in the credits for this episode in advance, but I thought  she would show up in a flashback. So I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised when she actually did show up!  
• A lot of commenters felt Serena Joy got off lightly, and many were not happy that June forgave her. There were also a lot of predictions of a future romance with Mark Tuello, the American rebellion leader (!).    
• While I loved Aunt Lydia's rant from the scaffold in episode 9 -- and it clearly shows her evolving into the person she becomes in "The Testaments" -- I'm not entirely clear how she'll get away with that and still maintain a powerful position in Gilead (as depicted in the book, anyway)?  
• A LOT of fans were LIVID that Nick got killed off at the end of episode 9!!  I saw more than one wishful suggestion that Nick (and sometimes Commander Lawrence) somehow survived the explosion -- he parachuted out of the plane!! Or it was all a dream!! (a la Pam Ewing and Bobby in the shower on "Dallas," many moons ago, lol).  
• Many saw Nick as a romantic hero and felt he'd been unfairly portrayed in the final season.
• Others pointed out that Nick/Nicole's father is part of "The Testaments" (albeit just a small part), so how could they kill him off?  (I would say that's Hollywood/showbiz...!)   
• Personally, I always thought of Nick as an ambiguous character. His allegiances in the first book are unclear -- when he nods to June at the very end of "The Handmaid's Tale" (the book -- also the ending of the first season of the TV show), indicating she should get into the van, she doesn't know whether the van is taking her to freedom or to punishment. In the second book, we don't hear much about him, only that he is indeed with Mayday -- but his role is not quite so clear in the TV series. He does co-operate with Mayday, and what's left of the American government, but seems increasingly reluctant to do so, and (with a wife, a powerful father-in-law, and a baby on the way) increasingly enmeshed in the life and leadership of Gilead. 
• Some pointed out that he had plenty of opportunities to escape Gilead (having helped June go back and forth across the border multiple times) and join June and their daughter in Canada or in Alaska -- but he remained in Gilead. 
• Some people were mad that June didn't wind up with Luke either (!), and the ambiguous nature of their parting. I didn't get the feeling that they were splitting for good, more like they were taking a break while they continued their work with the resistance (and continued the search for Hannah). However their marriage evolves, they seemed to be in a good place as friends and co-parents, which was nice to see.   
• Of course, it's "The HANDMAID's Tale" -- it's not "Twilight" or "The Hunger Games" (Team Luke or Team Nick), as one disgruntled commenter put it (lol). The book and the show are not about romance and not about the men.  Essentially, both are about women -- one woman in particular -- and their fight to survive in a brutal patriarchal system. 
• The takeaway message, I think, came in a conversation June had with her mother, Holly, midway through the finale, explaining her decision to leave her daughter (again) and continue the fight:  

“But the thing is, mom, I’m not safe. And neither are you. And they’re never going to stop coming for us. And even when we’re gone, they are going to come for our children…and our grandchildren. Fighting might not get us everything, but we don’t have a choice. Because not fighting is what got us Gilead in the first place. And Gilead doesn’t need to be beaten — it needs to be broken.” 

(Anyone paying attention??)  

• I was bemused by the number of people insisting that, in "The Testaments" (the book), Nicole and Hannah are reunited, not only with their mother but with their fathers (and therefore Nick should not have been killed off). 
• Okay, it's been a while (almost 6 years!) since I read the book, but I had absolutely NO  memory of the fathers showing up. I don't have time to re-read that book right now, and I gave my paper copy to the thrift store, but I did a search of my e-book for the word "father" -- and while there are references to both girls' fathers, I found no father-daughter reunion scenes. 
• I commented to that effect on a few social media comments -- and got thoroughly taken to task.  Which reminded me why I usually don't comment on public posts...! 
• Several people pointed me to a dedication ceremony at the very end of the book as evidence of a reunion. I went back to my ebook and looked it up, and yes, the sisters' mother AND fathers are mentioned in the wording of a plaque, which is cited by the speaker at a symposium, years into the future, as evidence that the two girls were reunited with their parents (and also went on to have children and grandchildren). But unlike their mother, the fathers never actually make an appearance in the story.  (I did NOT go back to argue that point, though!)  
• Many people were upset that there was no June-Hannah reunion (which would have been the traditional Hollywood happy ending, of course). I saw several comments along the lines of "Wasn't getting Hannah back the whole point of the show??:  Others begged for a season 7, with a mother-daughter reunion.
• They obviously haven't read the books  or any of the publicity about the upcoming sequel series, "The Testaments" (no one who has was expecting a reunion) -- in fact, many admitted they had no idea there's a sequel book, or a sequel show in the works.  
• I mean, I know I'm retired, I have more free time to read & follow things than some people do -- but you're a fan of the show!! you're on social media!! -- how can you not know?? 
• Also, Gilead being Gilead, you had to know that happy endings are far and few between...! and that some questions will never have answers...    
• A lot of people were also demanding to know what happened to Esther (played by Mckenna Grace -- not a character from the novel), last seen at the end of season 5, pregnant and shackled to a hospital bed. She did not reappear this season. 
• I noticed a LOT of references to mothers, children and the maternal relationship, in the finale -- and in the series generally.  
• I wasn't the only one who noticed!  I got a chuckle out of this review from Den of Geek.  The header reads (in part):  "This show grants itself a valedictory tour built around a heavily insisted-upon message that the children are our future."  Relevant excerpt:  

Nothing in the finale mattered so much as its heavily insisted-upon message, which was all about parents fighting to create a better world to keep their children safe. June readied herself to leave little Holly again, bolstered by Emily’s assurance that it didn’t mean she was abandoning her family. Luke planned to reach Hannah by liberating one state from Gilead at a time. Naomi Lawrence returned little Charlotte to her mother to keep her out of a warzone. Even Mark Tuello was conjured up an off-screen son to motivate his military moves.

By the time Holly Sr had declaimed over not being able to keep June safe, and Serena had promised to dedicate herself solely to the raising of her precious baby Noah, it was hard not to feel a little Gilead propaganda going on in terms of children being the only reason that anybody does anything. I don’t recall that being the point Margaret Atwood was making back in 1985. 

 

[Note from Loribeth:  Touchez!]

• I wasn't sure why June returned to the Waterfords' house (what was left of it) at the end... I thought that perhaps, when she went into her old room, she'd look in the closet and see "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" (the ersatz-Latin phrase for "Don't let the bastards grind you down"), carved in the wall by the Waterfords' original Handmaid (who killed herself).  
• She did not do that. 
• But it all made sense when she pulled out a tape recorder (although, really, she just happened to have one in her bag??) and started speaking the words that open Margaret Atwood's original novel.  (Both her mother & Luke encouraged her, in previous scenes, to write a book about her experiences in Gilead.)  
• Several people pointed out that the first episode of season one ends with June speaking the same words in voiceover... and that you can actually hear the "click" of the tape recorder being turned on. (Elisabeth Moss, who plays June, says she went back to that episode to make sure she matched the tone and pace of that speech as closely as possible for the finale.)  Which brings the series full circle, and also brings it back to the novel.  Perfect.  
• June/The Handmaid's first words in the book (the beginning of the speech which ends the show):  "A chair. A table. A lamp." But did anyone notice that Serena's final (or near-final?) words in the show echo this?  "A chair, a table, a bed -- that's all you need, I guess." (And her son, of course...!) 

What did you think?  

"Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery (re-read)

My L.M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group just finished reading "Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery together (we started on Jan. 15th). The book is called "Anne of Windy Willows" in the U.K., with some text variations (which we explored during our group read, and which were fascinating to learn about).  I originally read this one years ago as a kid in the early 1970s, when I was exploring the "Anne" books for the first time, and revisited it for the first time in many years back in December 2023 (review here). 

Chronologically, this is #5 in the "Anne of Green Gables" series -- although it was written much later than most of the other books (in 1936), in response to readers' (and Montgomery's publishers') demands for "more Anne." Storywise, it fills in the three-year gap between Anne's graduation from college ("Anne of the Island," 1915) and her marriage to Gilbert Blythe ("Anne's House of Dreams," 1917). 

In this book, Gilbert is away at medical school, while Anne becomes principal of the high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, where she finds a new home as a boarder at Windy Poplars with "the widows" -- "Aunt Kate" and "Aunt Chatty" -- and their feisty housekeeper, Rebecca Dew.  She makes new friends -- and enemies (the entire Pringle clan) -- and describes her adventures in chatty, detailed letters to Gilbert. 

"Windy Poplars" is generally regarded as a lesser entry in the Anne series -- and some of the material in it is, admittedly, "filler," and derivative of character types and vignettes from previous Anne books. But (as usual with LMM) the characters are amusing and well drawn, and some of the episodes are truly funny. (Among my favourites: dinner at Tomgallon House with a hostess who regales Anne non-stop with luridly hilarious tales of her family curse and its victims.)  And I found myself misty-eyed at the end, as Anne says goodbye to Windy Poplars and this in-between time in her life, and receives a memorable send-off from Rebecca Dew.  

My original rating of 4 stars still stand. 

Sadly, this may be our last Readathon book, after five years of great Montgomery reading and conversation. It began as a diversion in the early days of the pandemic, and has continued far longer than the original organizers envisioned.  Our group keader, a Montgomery scholar, has other projects to pursue, and I'm sure this has consumed an enormous amount of her time, even with assistance from volunteers. It's unclear whether anyone else is going to pick up the reins to continue the group.  At any rate, I've hugely enjoyed taking part, chatting with and learning from other Montgomery fans, and I'm going to miss it, if this is indeed the end!   

This was Book #16 read to date in 2025 (and Book #3 finished in May), bringing me to 36% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 2 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

"A Burning" by Megha Majumdar

"A Burning" by Megha Majumdar is the June selection for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club. Our main character is Jivan, an ambitious Muslim girl from an urban Indian slum who lives with her parents and works in a clothing store. At the train station one day, she witnesses a terrorist firebomb attack, in which 100 people die. A provocative, anti-government comment about the event on Facebook brings the authorities to her door:  she is dragged off to jail and accused of carrying out the attack herself.  

Two other characters' lives intertwine with Jivan's -- and with her fate -- in ways that become clearer as the story unfolds:  PT Sir, a phys ed teacher at a girls' school, who becomes involved in local politics, and Lovely, a hijra (a trans person who plays a spiritual role in Indian culture), who has been taking English lessons from Jivan and aspires to be an actress. 

I don't want to give away any more than that. 

This is not a book I would likely have picked up on my own. It's a short (a little more than 200 pages), and fast read, narrated in turn by Jivan, Lovely and PT Sir. It's very well written. It keeps you turning the pages, and it packs a powerful punch, especially near the end. 

I appreciated its merits. But I can't say I loved it. 

As a result, I struggled with how to rate this one. I settled on 3.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to 3 on Goodreads. 

This was Book #15 read to date in 2025 (and Book #2 finished in May), bringing me to 33% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: It's all a matter of perspective...!

I was scanning today's bargains on the Kobo (e-reading) website, and my eye caught the title of one of the books listed.  

It was titled "Infant Loss Quick & Easy."  

What the what?? 

Then I took another look... here's the book cover: 

Only someone who's endured pregnancy or infant loss would have had the reaction I did, right? (It's not the first time I've done a double-take on a book title, albeit not always from a loss/infertility/childless perspective...!).  Have you ever done something like this??  (Please tell me you have! lol)  

(It did give me something to write about for #MM today, though...!  lol)  

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

#MicroblogMondays: We are amused :)

It's our Victoria Day long weekend here, and we've been doing... absolutely nothing.  

It's been peaceful.

It's been lovely. :) 

As I noted last year around this time:  

  

...the constant stream of emails flowing into my inbox and notifications popping up on my cellphone have slowed to a trickle. My social media feeds haven't been as busy either. I've caught up on reading my emails as well as the latest chapters of my Cromwell Trilogy slow readalong, finished one book and started another.  I even balanced my chequebook yesterday!  (lol)  

I'm enjoying it while it lasts...!  ;) 

Similarly -- even with messages from U.S. friends and sites  (where their May long weekend is still to come...!) still flowing onto my screens -- my email inbox and social media feeds have been quieter than usual.  I was able to catch up on my online reading, as well as on my latest Footnotes & Tangents slow read, and start a new read too (an upcoming book selection).  I had just two Zoom sessions scheduled all weekend (there are often a lot more), skipped one and enjoyed the other.  We watched a lot of NHL Stanley Cup playoffs hockey -- sadly, both my Winnipeg Jets and dh's Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated -- as well as the last two episodes of "Miss Austen" on PBS last night. The weather has been a little colder/more rainy than we'd like (but it's better than heat & humidity!), and I was able to wipe down the balcony furniture and railings so they're ready to enjoy.  We saw some traditional neighbourhood fireworks from our windows last night (and will likely see some more tonight). 

It's a little busier today. Government offices are closed, but a lot of stores are open, so dh went out to do his usual Monday morning supermarket run. 

Of course, we would have liked to see the nephews & niblings (so would their parents/grandparents!) -- we haven't seen the two LGNephews since Easter -- but apparently they were all busy. So the weekend was entirely ours. We did get to see LGNiece at her grandparents' house on Friday for a few hours -- we went for a walk with her & SIL, and then played in the back yard while BIL grilled hot dogs for us for lunch.  

I'm looking forward to a repeat of (at least some of) the same peace & quiet this coming weekend, when the U.S. has its Memorial Day long weekend.  :)  

You can find all my previous Victoria Day-related posts here. 

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

#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things & small pleasures

(It's been a while since I did one of these... always easy to put together in a pinch, and I had NO idea what to write for #MM today...!)  

Annoying things: 

• Voldemort Day (i.e., yesterday). Enough said.  ;)  
• That said -- it wasn't too bad, compared to some years. Dh took me out for brunch -- on Friday, much less crowded!  -- and I spent a lot of the day online. I co-hosted a childless community text chat for an hour, and spent some time chatting there myself before and after my shift.  And then watched "Miss Austen" on PBS later that evening. 
• We emptied and cleaned out the humidifier, thinking we wouldn't need it any more, now that nicer weather is here (if not the summer humidity)(yet...!)... but it's been awfully dry in here. I wake up feeling like my eyelids are glued to my eyeballs -- I'm going through eye drops like crazy -- and I have to keep putting on hand lotion, because the backs of my hands are so itchy. Sigh.... 
• I accidentally dropped a picture frame on our coffee table while dusting, and it left a small gouge.  Likewise, our dining table has a lot of small, fine scratches on it. Dh scolds me for fretting about stuff like this -- they're 9 years old!  they've been well used!  scratches and dents are going to happen!  But it makes me sad. (Also, we paid a lot of money for this stuff! Sigh...)  
• Our personal banker called us on Friday, when we were out, and we didn't get his message until later in the day. So I called him back this morning -- which went to voice mail -- and left a message, including our home phone/landline number and also my cellphone number.  He called again a few hours later -- but he called dh's cellphone. (Which he also had on file, but still...!) WTF??  I know he enjoys talking to dh when we go there to see him -- both finance guys, both Italian -- but seriously??  Needless to say, I was not amused.
• I'm behind on my Goodreads reading goal for the year.  :( 

Small pleasures: 

• It's been nice enough outside to have the balcony door open all day, most days. Yay!! 
• It's been staying lighter outside for longer again.  :)  
• I'm noticing more sunsets again!  Yes, I know, the sun sets every night ;)  but it seems to be more noticeable (and prettier!) from spring through fall.  
• Buying cute outfits for the great-niblings. :)  
• Getting out new (renewed) passports! (I got mine almost two weeks ago and dh's FINALLY arrived today. Not sure why his took so long;  I sent them in the same package.)  

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

Voldemort Day odds & ends

It's been a while, and a pile of odds & ends have been accumulating in my drafts folder!  

• There was an extensive article in the Toronto Star recently on communal living -- a subject of interest for many CNBCers (especially those without partners) -- with a particular focus on the "Golden Girls" model, profiling four senior women living together in London (Ontario).  It discusses the pros & cons of such arrangements, and the move to enact legislation to support them. 
• I was tickled that the article actually mentions that "By 2036, nearly a quarter of Canadians are expected to be 65 or older. Many do not have children to support them in their senior years..." 
• Within that article, there's a link to another story from a few weeks ago that I hadn't seen, about a new documentary about solo aging. (The video is embedded in the story.) There are also links to some resources, including a mention of Ageing Without Children in the UK! 
• I haven't watched the documentary yet, and I don't know if it's viewable outside Canada, but here's a link to the story, fyi. (For some reason, gift links were not offered?? -- hopefully this will work regardless...)  
• Also from the Toronto Star: the stuff of nightmares for fertility patients: "Disturbing errors at Ontario fertility clinics destroy couples’ baby dreams years after province abandoned oversight plans." 
• Sample quote:  "...the person cleaning your teeth or giving you a massage is more highly regulated than the person looking after your embryos."
• Not a new subject, but well written: from Life Without Children, Nadia Huq observes "If I Was in a Hollywood Movie, I’d Be Dead." (Subhead: "Where are the happy endings for single women without kids?")   

Suddenly, everyone is talking about pronatalism (and pushing back on it too)(albeit not necessarily from a childless perspective). Just a couple of relevant articles: 

• From the New York Times: "White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children." (Pronatalism much?) 
• Beware the comments:  the ones I scanned contained a lot of childless/free-bashing by parents (and vice versa). Not good. :( 
• An excellent piece on this topic from Jill Filipovic (unfortunately, I think it's paywalled for subscribers). "Yes, America Should Make It Easier to Have Children." 
• The kicker is in the subhead:  "But the Trump administration doesn't want to help families. It wants to punish single women and childless people."  Yup. 
• Also related (and very much worth reading -- with an irresistible headline to boot...!), from Jessica Valenti at Abortion Every Day: "Bro-Natalists Are Ruining America." 
• Also related, from the Washington Post:  "You can’t bribe and shame your way to more babies." (Gift link.) 

And, a few for Voldemort Day (my pet name -- i.e., "The Day That Shall Not Be Named," lol):  

• Lisa Sibbett at The Auntie Bulletin and Ryan Rose Weaver of InTending talk about THAT day (both video & transcript available):  "There's No Card for This." Well worth a read!  
• From Y.L. Wolfe at On the Outside:  "A Tribute to the Childless Women Who Feel Invisible on Mother's Day." (Subhead:  "Your feelings and experiences matter, too.")  
• Mild rant:  I was at the bookstore recently and picked up a new title by Uzma Jalaluddin, with the promising title of "Detective Aunty." Always happy to see books about aunties! :)  
• Nevertheless -- while the cover description asks "who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty?" the title character, in fact, is not an "aunty" but a mother and grandmother, whose daughter is accused of murder. Maybe I'm missing something here, but why then isn't the title "Detective Grandma"??  
• And -- like mothers proclaiming themselves "childless" when they've dropped the kids off at Grandma's for the weekend, or "childless cat ladies" just because they own a cat and their kids are now all at college, why must mothers appropriate yet another title that doesn't quite describe their personal situation?? (I recognize that one can be a mother/grandmother AND an auntie, but still...!) 
• (I may still read the book, but still...!)  
• If you are interested in current events & U.S. politics with a historical perspective, Heather Cox Richardson's Substack, "Letters from an American" is an absolute must-read that I cannot recommend highly enough. On weekends, however, she often switches gears and posts about something else, sometimes just a gorgeous scenic photo. 
• Last night (in advance of That Day), she wrote about an older childfree friend who's influenced her life. It's a delight. :) May we all have a Mrs. A., in our life, and perhaps be that Mrs. A. for someone else!  
• This was written before Easter, not today -- and it has absolutely nothing to do with childlessness, pregnancy loss or infertility -- but it sure made me laugh!  Connie Schulz is such a fabulous writer!  If, like me, you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you will certainly enjoy "For Easter: A Tribute to Mom's Beehives." :)  

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!