Right now

Right now...* 

*(A (mostly) monthly series/meme.  Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first (similar) "The Current" post, here.)

June finally started feeling like summer!  We had a few hot/humid spells, especially earlier in the month, and at the very end, and a few days with some strong winds, but for the most part, it's been just pleasantly warm.  

Some of the things I/we did this month include: 

• Grocery shopping expeditions to the supermarket (June 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd & 29th). 
• Rode the subway downtown (something we don't do too often these days!) to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Paul McCartney photography exhibit ("Eyes of the Storm"), which was closing on June 7th. Well worth the trip! I think I had a smile on my face the entire time we were there.  :)  
• Spent a few hours with SIL & LGNephew #2 (June 3rd, 10th & 24th) -- as we did in the past with LGNephew #1 and LGNiece. His mom's mat leave ended and she returned to work on June 1st.  
• He was joined by his big brother (LGNephew #1) when we went there on June 29th. (LGNephew #1 will be there for the rest of the summer, now that school is out until September!) and we enjoyed seeing them both and taking them to the nearby park for a little while. :)  
• (LGNiece recently started attending a daycare/preschool program, where she's thriving, but she may join them occasionally!) 
• Spent the morning at the mall, walking and shopping (June 9th -- first time back in a while! -- June 16th. 23rd & 30th). 
• Bookstore browse (June 12th & 19th), followed by the first gelatos of the season! (June 12th), and a quick stop at the supermarket (June 19th). 
• Had the plumber in (again!) to unclog the kitchen sink & bathroom sink drains (again!), and (finally!) fix the master bathroom shower so that it runs warmer than just mildly lukewarm. (Last referenced in this post -- the boiler issues, diagnosed in January, while we were still in Manitoba, took more than two months to fix!!) (June 18th) 
• Stopped by the drugstore to pick up a prescription, buy some stamps and mail a few cards/letters at the post office counter there, and then went to the supermarket to pick up some takeout rice bowls for dinner. (June 18th) 

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Also right now:  

Reading: I finished 4 books in June (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads & StoryGraph, & tagged "2026 books").  Year to date, I've read 14 books,  reached 35% of my Goodreads Challenge goal, and am currently 5 books behind schedule to achieve it by year end.  

Midyear reading challenge checkup coming shortly....!  

• "Evvie Drake Starts Over" by Linda Holmes. (3 stars;  my review.) 
• "The Hacienda" by Isabel Canas (the July book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club). (3 stars;  my review.) 
• "The Mitford Affair" by Marie Benedict. (4 stars;  my review.) 
• "In Memoriam" by Alice Winn (the August book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club).  (I previously read and reviewed this one, here;  4-5-5 stars. My most recent review retains those ratings.)  

Current reads: 

• "London Falling" by Patrick Radden Keefe. Finished this morning;  review to come!  
• "Still Glides the Stream" by D.E. Stevenson, with my DES group. We started reading & discussing this book on June 22nd at the suggestion of a group member (who also offered to organize the discussion), and will finish in mid-August It's a book we last covered in 2021 (my reviews here & here). Currently 18% completed. 
• I usually read the book all the way through myself first, and then follow along with our chapter-by-chapter discussion ( = two full reads) -- but since I still remembered this one fairly well, and had other books to read, I decided I'd just follow along with the group this time around. 
• There are still a few other DES books I have not yet read, or read since I was a teenager, and I would have preferred to read one of those for the group instead of a re-read (and a fairly recent one at that) -- but I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to suggest and organize one of those myself, so...!  
• "The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy. After mulling it over (see this post!), I accepted a commenter's suggestion to do a readalong together!  Currently 60% completed. 
• "Childless: A Woman and a Girl in a Man's World" by Fabiana Formica.  This one is beautifully written, but slow going, and I was reading it (or trying to...!) at Mom & Dad's last summer (2025), where there were a lot of distractions. I've put it aside for the moment to focus on other reading priorities, but I've completed 33% to date.
• "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:  
• "Young Woman and the Sea" by Glenn Stout (September)
• "The Wedding People" by Alison Espach (October). (I previously read and reviewed this one, here;  rated 4-4.5 stars.)
• "The Women" by Kristin Hannah (November)
• For my D.E. Stevenson group:  Future reads to be determined.  
• Footnotes & Tangents slow readalongs for 2026 include:

• "Treacle Walker" by Alan Garner.  (Starts this Friday, July 3rd;  running for three weeks through July 24th. Not sure I'm doing this one...) 
• "The Children’s Book" by A.S. Byatt (September–December) (Planning to take part in this one, as I've never read Byatt and this one sounds interesting.)    

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

• "A Flower Travelled in My Blood" by Haley Cohen Gilliland 
• "The Infamous Gilberts" by Angela Tomaski 
• "Murder Bimbo" by Rebecca Novack
• "Ringo: A Fab Life" by Tom Doyle 
• "Joyful, Anyway" by Kate Bowler 
• "My Friends" by Fredrik Backman 
• "What She Said" by Elizabeth Renzetti 
• "Dispatches From Grief" by Danielle Crittenden 
• "Brassy Bit of Aging Crumpet" by Mary Walsh 
• "The Uncool" by Cameron Crowe 
• "Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!" by Liza Minnelli

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Watching: 

• World Cup games. We're not as into it as some people are (and dh is more interested than I am) -- and the fact that Italy is not in the tournament is a huge disappointment locally (it would have been bonkers in this particular suburb if they had...!)  -- but it's still been fun watching some of the games and the local coverage -- particularly since Toronto is one of the host cities!  AND Canada has been doing so well so far...!  
• Last Saturday morning, I tuned into a Zoom session from the LM. Montgomery Institute's biennial (every two years) conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island -- the keynote address, given by Megan Follows, familiar to many as THE definitive "Anne of Green Gables" n the 1980s mini-series. She and her daughter are doing a documentary about the character of Anne and why she remains so beloved to so many around the world, more than a century after her creation.  Hearing Megan talk about her experiences was a delight, and I will look forward to seeing the documentary someday!  
• I've forgotten to mention this one before, but we've gotten hooked lately on "The Great British Bake-Off," which CBC has been showing (in reruns) from 5 to 6 PM on weekday afternoons. (All the seasons are available to stream on CBC Gem.) We recently saw (I think?) season 15 (from 2024?), and a really fun Christmastime episode featuring British soap opera stars from "Emmerdale," East Enders" and (my Mom's longtime favourite when I was growing up) "Coronation Street." (I  just checked, and it is still on CBC every night (!), as well as on CBC Gem!)  
• None of the GBBO  hosts/judges were familiar to me -- and the accents can occasionally be a little indecipherable ;)  -- but we've been enjoying it hugely.  :)  
• (My guess was that Noel Fielding is an aging rock star from the 1970s -- he certainly looks the part, lol.  Close -- he's an actor!)  
• They also show the Canadian version from time to time in the same time slot, and sometimes one of Jamie Oliver's cooking shows as well.  

Playing:  

• Heardle Decades: (as of June 30th):  
• Heardle 60s: 74.2% (950/1281, 385 on first guess), up 0.1%. since May 31st. Max streak: 21. 
• Heardle 70s: 75.0% (770/1027, 433 on first guess), up 0.3% from May 31st. Max streak: 18. 
• Heardle 80s:  41.3% (363/878, 141 on first guess), down 0.1% from May 31st. Max. streak: 6 (up from 5 in May).
• Heardle 90s: 32.9% (322/979, 83 on first guess), down 0.2% from May 31st. Max. streak: 9. 
• NYT Connections: 
• By May 31st, I had completed 654 games, won 89% of them (unchanged since Dec. 31st), including 352 "perfect puzzles" with zero errors, and 20 where I got the most difficult/purple category first (an increase of 2 since Dec. 31st). Maximum winning streak:  45 (unchanged since June 30th, 2025).  Current streak:4.  
• As of June 30th, I'd played 684 games and won 90% of them (a gain of 1%! since Dec. 31st), including 370 "perfect puzzles" with zero errors, and 20 where I got the most difficult/purple category first (unchanged since May 31st). Maximum winning streak: 45 (unchanged since June 30th, 2025). Current streak: 9.. 

Listening:  

Following:  . 

Eating/Drinking:  

• Over the past 18-24 months, we've been trying to eat healthier and lower our cholesterol -- and avoid having to take (more) medication -- since some less-than-stellar bloodwork results for both of us in fall 2024 and then again (for me) last November (2025, as mentioned in November's Right Now post). 
• I ended June 1.8 pounds less than when the month started.  Overall, I'm down almost 16 pounds since late October 2024 -- close to my lowest weight in more than a decade -- and almost 28 pounds from my heaviest-ever weight  (in August 2021). 
• (Dh is down almost 18 pounds overall since fall 2024.)
• Takeout meals included the usual pizza slices, soup and teriyaki rice bowls from the supermarket, thin-crust wood oven pizza and rotisserie chicken. (It's gotten a little boring lately, to be honest -- but it's not easy finding takeout meals that are (a) cheap-ish (b) not too horrible in terms of cholesterol and (c) something dh & I can agree on...!)  

Wearing:  With the advent of consistently warmer, sometimes humid weather, shorts and tank tops have been added to the wardrobe roster, along with short sleeves, capris & sandals. :) 

Buying (besides books, lol):   Plane tickets to visit my dad (again) in mid/late July. The house sale will have closed by then. We'll celebrate his 87th birthday while we're there. 

Irresistible summer clothes for the great-niblings and Little Princess #3.  :)  Lots of bargains right now!  

A cute red & white summery sundress, on sale at Suzy (AKA Suzy Shier, which has been around since I was in university, maybe even high school??). I hadn't been in a Suzy store in years, but spotted it on a rack as I was walking by at the mall, went in and tried it on). $20 plus tax (Canadian)!  (Score!!) 

Noticing/Appreciating:  The longer days and increased daylight... although, of course, we're now past summer solstice and the days are gradually starting to get shorter again...

Hoping:  That the a/c holds out in the heat wave we're having right now!  :p  (Temperatures in the 30sC;  humidex readings well into the 40sC. For reference, 30C = 86F, 35C = 95C, 40C = 104F and 45C = 113F.  Yuck!)  

Prioritizing:  Staying cool...!

Loving:  The days this month when the weather has been nice enough that I could sit outside on the balcony with a drink and a book for an hour or two. 

Trying:  To put down the phone/laptop more often and read more books this summer.  

Wondering:  Whether I'll get through my mental to-do list before we leave for Dad's again. (I suspect not...! -- certainly not all the items...) 

Wanting: To get back to the local art gallery where I have a membership soon... they have some new exhibits as well as a few that are closing soon that I'd like to see. 

                        

Feeling: Relieved to have the shower issue (and other plumbing issues) fixed. Happy to be spending time with Little Great-Nephew #2 (and looking forward to spending more time with his older brother too, now that school is out!). 

Coming up in July/Anticipating: Canada Day (which is actually today!) & Fourth of July 250 (U.S.) hoopla... Mom & Dad's house sale closing (also today, July 1st)...  our 41st wedding anniversary... spending some time with both the LGNephews at SIL's this summer... SIL & BIL's birthdays (which we'll miss out on celebrating with the family, because -- see next item!);  another trip to Manitoba to see my dad and celebrate his 87th (!) birthday. 

#MicroblogMondays: When I'm 64

Yesterday was my 64th (!!) birthday. For months and months now, whenever I thought about this particular birthday, a certain song would start playing in my brain.  (Hint: I'm a lifelong Beatles fan.)  ;) 

Paul McCartney wrote "When I'm 64" in 1956, when he was just 14 years old (!) and recorded it 10 years later for the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper" album, when he was still just 24. I've heard that when he DID turn 64 (in 2006), his kids & grandkids sent him a recording of themselves singing the song. (He's 82 now.)(!)  

There's a line in the song that has also carved itself into my brain (beyond the opening "When I get old and losing my hair, many years from now..." and "will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?"):  it's:  

"Grandchildren on your knee/Vera, Chuck and Dave."  

Paul has five adult children (four with his first wife Linda and one with second wife Heather Mills). He's also a grandfather 8 times over. (Daughters Mary & Stella have four kids each-- none of them named Vera, Chuck or Dave). The kids call him "Grandude," which provided the inspiration for two "Grandude" children's books Paul has written. (Fun fact:  the illustrator is Canadian -- I saw her interviewed on the news a few years ago.)  

Needless to say, Vera, Chuck and Dave have not materialized in my own life (and never will) -- and (obviously) neither have their parents.  :p  I do have two wonderful nephews and three adorable great-niblings (including a new little great-nephew I have yet to meet), and I'm very grateful for any time I get to spend with them. (It's great -- but it's not QUITE the same...!) 

Milestone birthdays (including ones highlighted by the Beatles, lol) certainly do make you think about what was, what might have been, and what may come. Next year I'll be 65 and officially a senior citizen, by just about any measure. (!) 

64 (and 65) seems like a very LONG way off when you're 14 or 24 (which is when I got married). I could never have imagined all the things that have happened in my life, good and bad, since then. (Paul is now 82 (!) -- I'm sure he'd say the same thing.) I certainly would never have thought I'd be childless & grandchildless. (Oh, the innocence of youth...)  

Still, aging also gives you an appreciation for the good things in your life. As my grandma used to say (and as I've often recounted in this blog), "It sure beats the alternative...!"  I may not have children or grandchildren -- but I have a great husband (of almost 40! years now), a pretty great extended family, a nice home, a decent pension & benefits, lots of great books to read, plenty to eat, and my health is still pretty good, albeit my blood pressure & cholesterol are higher and knees a whole lot creakier than when I was 24. Still, I'll take it. As the song says, "Who could ask for more?"  

(Well -- we might ask -- but we don't always GET, do we? But we can be grateful for what we do have, especially at this stage of life...!) 

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

62

 

Credit where credit is due:  I grabbed the image above from a Medium post written by a woman named Joanne Huspek a few years ago on her own 62nd birthday:  "62 Things to Do When You Turn 62."  The number of candles in the image does give one pause -- but hey, as my Grandma once said about aging (and as I have quoted on this blog many times), "Consider the alternative...!"  

I'm not sure how many of the things on the list I did today ;) but I had a pretty good, busy day. This morning, we went to a well-known art gallery near us, where I have a membership, for the first time since the pandemic began. It was good to be back!  We wore masks, but there were very few other visitors there, thankfully. 

After that, we headed to the bookstore for a browse. I had both a $50 gift card from my sister and a 20% off birthday email burning a hole in my pocket (lol), on top of my membership card, which gave me yet another 10% off. I picked up "The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969-73" as well as (just guess...!) Prince Harry's memoir, "Spare" (I couldn't resist).  That one was discounted by 25%. With my gift card and all the discounts, I wound up paying a grand total of $4.82 for two hardcovers (which have gotten REALLY expensive lately!). Score!!  

After that, we went to the supermarket to pick up some wine for dinner, cupcakes for dessert, and pizza slices for lunch. We ordered takeout for dinner from one of our favourite restaurants.  And BIL & SIL dropped by a for a little while, with a gift. Just guess what it was -- SIL knows me well, lol.  Guess I'll be taking the copy I bought back to the store next week...!  ;)  

Tomorrow, the best present of all:  a haircut!  :)  

"My Ticket to Ride" by Janice Mitchell

If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll know that I spent several teenaged years in the mid-1970s obsessed with the top boy band of the day, the (cough!) Bay City Rollers. Whenever I had a fight with my mother, I would lie awake at night, plotting how I would run away to Scotland (where the Rollers were from)(and then she'd be sorry...!).  I never did quite figure out how I was going to manage to get to Scotland all by myself on my $5 a week allowance (plus occasional money from babysitting)  ;)  (I'd never even been on a plane before, and it was a lot harder to research and arrange those sorts of things in pre-Internet times)  but there was nothing I wanted more than to go to there, meet my favourite Roller (Woody), marry him and live happily ever after. 

Janice Mitchell lived my dream -- a version of it, at least. In 1964, at the age of 16, she and her friend Martha (Marty) ran away together from Cleveland to London, with the goal of meeting the Beatles (they figured hanging around the clubs frequented by the band in Soho would do the trick) and getting jobs with Brian Epstein (he's a busy man, he must need help! and Janice could type!!).  They actually made it to England (after cashing in Marty's college fund)(!), found and rented an apartment, and spent 23 days there, sightseeing, visiting clubs and hanging out with local boys (including a hitchhiking trip to Liverpool), before they were apprehended by police and abruptly hauled back to the States. The girls didn't realize their disappearance had made international headlines. Not only did Janice and Marty suffer personal consequences, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and rock and roll generally, were banned from Cleveland for two years afterward, until 1966 (!). 

Not allowed to talk about what had happened, and encouraged to put the entire episode behind her, Janice didn't tell anyone about her amazing adventure for more than 50 years (!). She went on to become a journalist, a federal investigator (now retired), a private investigator and adjunct professor.  She's still a Beatles fan. :) 

Now, she's written a book about the experience. You've gotta love the title: "My Ticket to Ride: How I Ran Away to England to Meet the Beatles and Got Rock and Roll Banned in Cleveland (A True Story from 1964)."  :) 

I first heard about Janice and her book via Ann Moses, who was the editor of Tiger Beat magazine back in the 1960s/early 1970s. I read & enjoyed Ann's memoir "Meow" a few years ago (reviewed here) and have followed her on Facebook ever since then. 

"Author Janice Mitchell contacted me a few years ago and asked me for advice for a book she was working on," Ann wrote in a Facebook post last September. "After hearing her summary of her adventure, I told her the story was “golden” and to forge ahead."  

This all sounds rather light-hearted, and there's a charming naivete to the teenagers' plans and escapades -- echoes of a simpler, more innocent time -- but there's a dark/sad/serious undercurrent to Janice's story, too -- one that lifts the book above a simple fan-girl's memoir. Janice's parents were alcoholics, who left Janice with an aging great-aunt and uncle and disappeared when she was 8 years old. She didn't see them, nor her younger sister and brother, for another 20 years. Music, and the Beatles, gave colour and meaning to her somewhat dreary life. She truly believed she would not be missed and that her great-aunt would be better off without having her around to worry about. 

Janice remembers the police officers in England treated them with kindness -- those in their own country, not so much. They were taken from the plane in Cleveland straight to a juvenile detention centre, until their families were able to bail them out, and charged with juvenile delinquency, based on complaints of forgery, truancy, disobedience and running away. This treatment seems like a huge amount of overkill -- but, as one of the book blurbs says, it was "an era in America when young women exercising some control over their lives presented a serious threat to adult society."  Clearly, not everyone back then was a Beatles fan...! 

This was a fast read, and I enjoyed it hugely (I'll admit it was right up my alley). If you're a Beatles fan (as I am), or (like me) ever dreamed of running away to follow your favourite boy band, you will enjoy this book. :) 

5 stars. 

(Caroline Sullivan also lived a version of my dream in the 1970s,  WITH the Bay City Rollers. She and some friends (who called themselves the "Tacky Tartan Tarts")(!) followed the Rollers around the U.S. for four straight summers, from 1975 to 1979  (She wound up sleeping with one of them too -- unnamed in the book, but it's not hard to guess who it was.)  Now a music journalist in Britain, she wrote a memoir about her Rollermaniac days called "Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with the Bay City Rollers" in 1999.  My British penpal from those days -- one of the few penpals I'm still in touch with from that time -- sent me a copy before it became available here in North America. :)  I enjoyed that one too.  :)   )   

This was Book #19 read to date in 2022 (and Book #3 finished in April), bringing me to 42% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

#MicroblogMondays: Pandemic odds & ends

• Strike up the Hallelujah Chorus!!!  My parents (aged 80 & almost 82) are finally going to be vaccinated!!  Not because they weren't eligible before this, but because they were dragging their feet. (eye roll)  My sister finally managed to persuade them to get it done when she was there this weekend (and I think the rising numbers of cases and variants there finally convinced them), and booked their appointments for them. They'll be going in a week & a half, to one of the provincial vaccination centres in another slightly larger town, 20 miles down the road. My sister is prepared to take Friday off work and come out from the city on Thursday night to help out, if they're feeling rough from side effects. I am very relieved!! (as is my sister, who is torn between wanting to come visit and help out, and fearing bringing the virus to them...)
• After I posted my post-vaccination updates (24 and 48 hours out), I noticed a sore, hot, red patch on my upper left arm, below the vaccination site, when I was in the shower on Wednesday morning. The exact same thing has happened to me before, after regular flu shots (and noticeably after the H1N1 flu shot in 2009) , so I've tried not to be (too) worried. (It WAS the AstraZeneca shot, lol..!)  
• A week after I first received the shot, and several days after I first noticed the red patch, it's still there, and my arm is still a bit sore -- although the redness has faded considerably and is almost gone now. I've also been a little more tired than usual all this week. 
• Apparently SIL also experienced some side effects after her shot. 
• (BIL goes back & forth between thinking he's now invincible after just one shot, and that he must have received a placebo, since he didn't feel anything at all...!)
• Everywhere in my social media feeds I (still... STILL!!) see groups of people getting together... in Canada, in the U.S.  Not six feet apart, not wearing masks. Yes, some of them may have been fully vaccinated -- but I suspect (I know) most of them have not. (And unless you're getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, one shot does NOT mean you are immune!)  
• Meanwhile the variants are running rampant, case numbers are skyrocketing and ICUs are nearing capacity. My province hit a record number of daily new cases on Sunday:  4,456. And we won't see the numbers from people infected at family get-togethers, etc., over the Easter weekend -- even thought both politicians and medical staff alike begged people to stay at home -- for another week yet... 
• IT'S NOT OVER YET, PEOPLE. PLEASE... JUST STAY THE F*** AT HOME. 
• (Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk...) 
• Dh woke up before me on Friday morning, and came back into the bedroom after turning on the TV to tell me that Prince Philip had died. I guess it was not unexpected -- he was almost 100 years old (!) and his health has not been good lately. But it's still very sad... as someone said on TV, perhaps not the end of an era, but the beginning of the end of one.  
• I've written several times previously (including here) about the one time I got to see Prince Philip -- and the Queen, Prince Charles and Princess Anne -- in July 1970 (when I was 9 years old), but Mel's post about Philip's death reminded me of a time several years later (late 70s/early 80s), when Philip was coming to Winnipeg to speak at a fundraiser for a local hospital. The morning DJ on the radio station I listened to decided he was going to call Buckingham Palace and ask Prince Philip to bring along one of those tall fur hats the guards wear. It was kind of a joke/prank call, but believe it or not, he actually got put through and talked to Philip, and Philip said he would see what he could do. The hat was sent in advance of Philip's visit, and they auctioned it off with proceeds going to the hospital. The DJ was absolutely stunned when he actually got through -- but he was very polite and he did remember to address the Prince as “Your Royal Highness,” lol.
• In Philip's honour (lol), I've done a search of my old posts and added a new "Royals" label to ones mentioning the Royal Family. 
• Sunday/yesterday was dh's (64th) birthday, his second of the pandemic. Last year, we were under lockdown and I had to scrounge up a card for him from my stash. This year, we're under lockdown/stay-at-home order (AGAIN), but I managed to pick up a proper birthday card for him before it kicked in. And he had a birthday cake: at his request, we baked one on Saturday -- chocolate from a cake mix with canned frosting, but that's what he wanted!  
• (He even let me take and post a photo on social media -- although he refused to let me put a candle on the cake or sing him "Happy Birthday," lol -- although an online friend/fellow Beatles fan suggested "When I'm 64" might be more appropriate...!)  
  
• Hopefully next year, he can have a proper party for his 65th (if he wants one -- which he probably won't, but at least a family gathering with his brother & SIL, the nephews and Little Great-Nephew). 

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

Midweek odds & ends

• We had a rude awakening on Monday morning: another fire alarm at around 4:45 a.m. (eyeroll) -- the first in quite a while, thankfully. (Why is it these things always happen late, late at night or early, early in the morning? Never at, say 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. or 9 p.m....)  Three trucks arrived to check things out & we got the all-clear to return to our units about 45 minutes later. Early as it was, I was actually grateful that it was 4:45 a.m. and not an even more ungodly hour, like 3 a.m., and that, while it WAS a tad chilly outside (about 15C, I think?), it wasn't the middle of winter. I went out in my shirt sleeves (before realizing that maybe a sweater or jacket might have been a good idea...), but it wasn't too bad. Also, as someone said, "At least the sprinklers didn't go off this time...!" (which has happened in the past, causing a lot of damage to some units, although thankfully not ours!).  We got to chat with some of the neighbours (some wearing masks, some not -- we did remember to grab ours before we left our unit, and put them on before we went down the stairs), & laugh at all the dogs, barking at each other. There was even a couple with a brand new baby, all bundled up in blankets. 
• In the city of Toronto proper, masks are now required in the common areas/public spaces of all condo buildings. No such rules hereabouts (yet?), although signs have appeared beside all the elevators recommending that masks be worn, and a lot of residents are now doing so. 
• It's so weird (/annoying?) to see so many photos on social media of friends & relatives, travelling (to other cities/locations within the province, but still), at the beach, at pool parties and on restaurant patios with friends, celebrating birthdays with multiple other families. Taking group photos, arms around each other, heads close together. Part of me is envious that they can be that carefree (& that they have such active social lives and so many friends...!).  Part of me, of course, is thinking, "WTF? Hello, pandemic??"  Meanwhile, dh & I (still) sit in our condo, venturing out only occasionally to BIL's house or to the bookstore or gelato shop (at times when the stores are less busy, wearing masks & using hand sanitizer liberally, washing our hands thoroughly when we get home...), and that's an adventure these days for us. 
• People have posted memes that allude to being the diligent ones stuck doing the group project at school while everyone else fools around (& shares in the A without having done any of the work). As someone who often got stuck in that role at school, it does feel like deja vu. I can't help but feeling like a sucker sometimes. 
• And yet I KNOW that were I to venture out to a party or restaurant, etc., *I* would surely be that one person who wound up getting the virus. (It's the same guilt complex & fear of being the one who would surely get caught that kept me from smoking pot at university, lol.)(Definitely not the lack of opportunities...!)  
• We're actually considering a quick trip to the mall soon. We haven't set foot in one since pre-COVID times (late February/early March). The only reason(s) I want to go are (1) I'm overdue to have my anniversary ring inspected by the jewelry store to maintain the warranty, and (b) my watch needs a new battery, and there's a kiosk there that replaces them on the spot. (I have another watch that's running, but it's huge and heavy... I much prefer my usual everyday one.) 
• Cases in my home province (Manitoba), which have been relatively low all, have suddenly shot up. And school hasn't even started yet...!  My sister has brought my parents masks & lectured them to USE THEM. I feel like any chances I had of spending Christmas with my family are slipping further and further away... :( 
• Speaking of social media, a cute Great-Nephew story, from an Instagram post by his dad (Older Nephew). The caption reads: "Whenever [Great-Nephew] starts getting fussy the Beatles calm him down."  Great-Nephew (who turned 9 months old on Monday) is standing in front of the TV, one pudgy little hand grasping the edge of the TV stand, the other reaching up to touch the screen, as the Beatles (circa 1968) loom large above him, singing "Hey Jude." George, John and Ringo appear in closeups, but it's mostly Paul, playing the piano and singing and looking straight at the viewer. Great-Nephew is mesmerized, swaying a little to the music. (He's not walking yet, but he can pull himself up on furniture in a flash!) Eventually, Great-Nephew turns and looks at his dad, soother/pacifier in his mouth, & just before the video cuts off, Older Nephew asks. "Do you like the Beatles?"  Just way too cute. Totally made my day. :)  I'm not sure I can claim any credit, as I'm pretty sure Older Nephew was already a Beatles fan before I turned over my vinyl collection to him -- but I had this very satisfied feeling of "My work here is done,"  lol.  "Well done, Daddy!"  I wrote in the comments. ;) 
• My "Rilla of Ingleside" Readathon Facebook group -- which has morphed into a readathon of "Jane of Lantern Hill," by the same author (Lucy Maud Montgomery) -- has decided to keep going and change its name to the more generic Lucy Maud Montgomery Readathon. And our next selection (starting soon) will be (another) one of my Montgomery favourites -- "The Blue Castle"!! A lot of other LMM fans also point to "The Blue Castle" as their favourite among her novels (sorry, Anne of Green Gables...!)  In fact, "Rilla," "Jane" and "The Blue Castle" would probably be my top 3 LMM reads (just don't ask me to rank them...!), so needless to say, it's been a great couple of months for me as a longtime (practically lifelong) Montgomery fan. :)  You are welcome to join us! 

Voldemort Day* recap (and other odds & ends)

• I had several Voldemort Day*-related posts, resources & events to share with you, but somehow lost my posting mojo in the days leading up to last weekend and didn't get a post done. :(  My apologies to the bloggers I meant to highlight and to you all for not sharing. 
• I had a weepy day last Thursday. The weather was overcast & drizzly.  I was missing little Great-Nephew & the dog. I was wondering when I'm ever going to get to see my parents again. I was wondering when I'm ever going to get out of this condo (much as I like it, there ARE limits...) and back into a store or a coffee shop.  But I was also afraid just thinking about doing any of those things, because who knows if/when it's really going to be safe?  I was thinking about Katie, and trying to forget that it was Voldemort Day coming up, and that we were supposed to be going to see "Hamilton" on Saturday. The political & medical news coming out of the States was jaw-droppingly horrendous. I was watching a documentary on John Lennon and the Beatles on TV, which made me smile (as the Beatles always do), but also made me teary & nostalgic for those more innocent times so long ago... 
• I am glad Voldemort Day is behind us. It was a rather weird one, even though we've never really been part of the family celebrations stuff (no kids to celebrate me, dh's mother dead before I ever met her & my own mother 1000 miles away). I didn't notice quite as many ads, perhaps (so many stores closed, so many shoppers stuck at home, so many people out of work or temporarily laid off with no income...) -- but there was a steadily rising drumbeat of posts on my social media feeds paying tribute to the wonders of motherhood, and scrolling through them on the day itself, even just for a perfunctory glance, was EXHAUSTING.  The weather sucked too:  we had snow flurries (!) on & off all morning. 
• On the bright side: Dh raided my stash of blank notecards ;)  and so there was a card waiting for me when I woke up after all (tradition).  He made eggs for brunch and we had beef stew simmering in the crockpot all day for dinner (which smelled wonderful!). There was a cute new video of Little Great-Nephew on Instagram to watch. :)  I spent a few hours on first a Zoom chat and then a text chat on the Gateway Women private community, talked to both my sister & my mother, and watched the latest episode of "World on Fire" on PBS later in the evening. 
• Also on the bright side: Voldemort Day marked the timely and very welcome return of The NotMom, with a blog post and the first episode of their new podcast on Facebook Live!  You can watch the video recording on The NotMom's Facebook page as well as on YouTube.  
• It's been wonderful reading posts from others who decided to use the COVID-related prompts I posted a while back as blogging prompts. They include Infertile Phoenix, Jjiraffe and Turia. If you decide to do your own post, I'd love to read it!  (My own answers here.)  

*my personal nickname for Mother's Day = "The Day Which Shall Not Be Named." (Karin, who works with Jody at Gateway Women, calls it "Others Day," which also works, I think...!)

Canada Day odds & ends

• It's Canada Day #152.  My country is not perfect... but it's more perfect than a lot of places on this planet, lol.  ;)  I feel incredibly lucky to be here. 
• It's been a busy few days. (I am EXHAUSTED.) Saturday was the gender reveal party for Older Nephew & his wife's baby.  It was mostly just an excuse to get together with family, eat & then cut the cake to see what colour the filling inside was. 
• They're doing ANOTHER reveal in two weeks for her side of the family -- various issues made it difficult/impossible to hold just one party -- and they asked us not to share anything on social media (or elsewhere!) until that one's over. I know it's not likely anyone would find out via this blog... but I'm going to hold off, just in case.  ;) 
• It was mostly fun, especially just being together with the nephews & their wives, although all the baby talk does wear me down after a while. The hardest moment, for me, was when everyone started talking about how much fun it's going to be to have a baby around at Christmastime. I remembered telling my mom I was due in mid-November, and her rapturous sigh: "A baby for Christmas!!" 
• It was also their dog's 3rd birthday. :)  Dh & I brought him a present -- 3 cucumbers, tied up with a ribbon (his favourite treat -- SIL cuts them up into little cubes for him and puts them his dish, and he gobbles them right up).  He's brought so much joy to the family in these past three years!  :)  Dh & I have vowed to give him some extra spoiling once the baby is here... we're all wondering what his reaction is going to be to this new addition to the family...!  
• Yesterday, dh, BIL & SIL & I went to see.... "Yesterday," a rom-com which imagines a world where only one person remembers the Beatles & their music -- and then proceeds to make those amazing songs famous all over again. (There's a couple of other things that are different about the world too, that are kind of funny.) It's the kind of movie where it's best not to think too critically about the hows & whys, and just enjoy the ride. ;)  And there are a couple of scenes towards the end -- one in particular -- that pack an emotional wallop. (I needed Kleenex.) I often read a lot of reviews, etc., before I go to a movie. I didn't get around to it before this one (although I knew the movie's basic premise), and I'm kind of glad I didn't. (Past Beatles-related posts here.)  
• I found out my aunt is in town (well, on the other side of the city, about an hour's drive away), visiting her son/my cousin (my only relative in the vicinity). We were in the throes of dealing with FIL's illness when she was here last year, and weren't able to meet up, and we have lots to do between now & when we head west in a few weeks.  If I don't get to see her here, I hope to see her there...!   

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

#MicroblogMondays: Yeah, I'm amazed...

It was the dream of a lifetime come true:  seeing Paul McCartney in concert. (Even better, seeing it in my "home" city, along with my sister, who shares my love of the Beatles & so many of my Beatles-related memories from growing up in the 1960s & 1970s.)

I tried taking a few photos & videos, but most of them didn't turn out very well. I mostly let my phone sit in my purse, and just let the music and emotions (and there were many) wash over me.  (Set list here.)

He and his fabulous band opened with "A Hard Day's Night." I had flashbacks to seeing the movie for the first time in a theatre re-release in the early 1980s, to watching the Beatles cartoon show with my sister & cousin as a child, and to my mom taking me to see "Help!" at the movie theatre when I was a pre-schooler.

He played "Maybe I'm Amazed," quite possibly my favourite of his solo songs and a strong contender for our wedding first dance song (although we wound up picking something else).

He sang "Let 'Em In," and I remember my grandpa singing along & chuckling over "Auntie Jin" (he had an Aunt Jinny too).

They played "Band on the Run," and I was a young teenager again, listening to the song on the radio and to the album in my friend's basement rec room.

They played "Live and Let Die," complete with explosions, and I thought of how much the world had changed since he wrote the song in the mid-1970s for the James Bond movie of the same name. (Frankly, both my sister & I were surprised the explosions were still allowed, in this very different day & age...!)

We all sang along to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" -- and he ended off with the ultimate singalong -- "Hey Jude" (of course) -- and I remembered all the junior high dances where that was always the last slow dance, desperately hoping someone would ask me to dance. (They never did.) And I thought about how cool it was to be sitting in an arena, more than 40 years later, singing the same song along with Paul & 14,000+ other people. I wondered if Paul imagined, back in 1968, that 50 years later, he'd still be singing that song in front of thousands of people. I know that 14-year-old me from 1975 would never have imagined the day when Paul McCartney (or any Beatle, for that matter) & I would share the same space.

(He & the band then came back for a kick-ass encore set that started with "Yesterday," and wound up with (of course) "The End" -- "And in the end the love you take/Is equal to the love you make."  Perfection. :)

Probably my favourite moment of the night (among so, so many memorable moments) was when when he came out to the edge of the stage with an acoustic guitar and played "Blackbird." The lights dimmed, the glow of hundreds of cellphones lit up the arena like tiny stars, and the stage rose up and up and up into the air, high above the audience. It was magical. It was hugely emotional. I blinked back tears.  He told us he'd written it with the civil rights marches of the 1960s in mind (and I couldn't help thinking of the present day, and of Christine Blasey Ford & all the brave women who have come forward with stories of courage and survival). "All your life... you were only waiting for this moment to be free."

And then he sang "Here Today," which he wrote after John Lennon was murdered, saying all the things to him that he never got the chance to say, and the stage slowly lowered back to its regular height.

His voice is not quite what it once was... but he played for three solid hours, bouncing from his famous Hofner bass to electric guitar to acoustic guitar to ukelele (George taught him how to play it) to grand piano to upright -- back & forth, and telling stories along the way.  Did I mention the man turned 76 years old (!!) this summer??!  We should all be so energetic at that age...

He clearly still loves doing what he does, and I hope he keeps on doing it for as long as he's willing and able.  I feel so very lucky to have lived almost my entire life with Beatles/Wings/McCartney songs as a major part of the soundtrack. And so very lucky to have finally seen him in concert.

Concert review & newspaper photos here.

One local couple got the ultimate photobomb for their wedding album! :) 

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

He's hard to see here ;) but that's Sir Paul McCartney himself, singing "Blackbird" with an acoustic guitar
on an elevated stage (with larger images on screens on either side of the stage). 

Odds & ends

• I am typing this on my brand new laptop! As I wrote a while back, my 8-year-old Toshiba laptop has been crashing with increasingly alarming frequency.  I asked my sister's boyfriend K. to keep an eye out for a good deal on a new one, and last weekend, my sister sent me the links to two models on sale at Best Buy.  Dh & I went there on Monday & picked one out. It happened to cost just $50 more than I paid for my previous laptop, 8 years ago...! I've spent the past few afternoons/evenings on the phone & on screen with K., setting it up, transferring over programs & files from my old laptop, etc.  I still have a few more things on my to-do list, but am happy to have my new toy mostly operational! ;)  
• The new laptop will take a little getting used to. For one thing, it runs on Windows 10 (my old laptop uses Windows 7). 
• It is a "slim" laptop and weighs considerably less than my old one -- just 4.4 pounds (much to dh's relief, since he usually winds up carrying it when we travel...!). 
• The power cord outlet is on the left side of the laptop;  it's on the right on my old model. 
• My old laptop had ports on both sides;  on the new one, they're all on the left. 
• The new one doesn't have a CD/DVD player (although I didn't really use that feature much on the old one anyway). 
• The keyboard includes a number pad on the right side, which my old laptop does not have (but the computer I used at work did, so I am somewhat used to that).  
• The "delete" key on my old laptop is in the upper right-hand corner of the keyboard. On my new laptop, that particular key happens to be the power (on/off) button. (Just guess how I figured THAT one out...!)
• I've been sad that the odds of me getting "home" to visit my family this summer are not that great, because of FIL's failing health. But -- I had said to my parents that maybe we might come for (Canadian) Thanksgiving (in early October), and that's increasingly looking like it might happen. I was dreaming of/drooling over my mom's turkey, gravy & stuffing anyway... and then my sister called me with an additional reason to come home then: Paul McCartney. He is NOT scheduled to do a show in Toronto on his upcoming tour (yet), but he IS appearing in Winnipeg in late September -- and my sister managed to snag a pair of tickets.  She has already seen Paul twice;  I haven't, nor have I been to a rock concert since Bruce Springsteen in about 1992. Given that the man recently turned 76 years old (!), how many more opportunities am I going to get to see one of the two remaining Beatles??  This will be the most expensive concert ticket I've ever paid for ($300, when you factor in taxes, fees, etc. -- plus my airfare!), but I think it will be well worth the price. :)  And in the event that I'm not able to go (because of FIL or other reasons), she should have no problem getting someone else to take the extra ticket. 
• Louise Brown -- the first "test tube" (IVF) baby -- will celebrate her 40th birthday later this month. And a group of childless-not-by-choice bloggers & activists (including yours truly) have something special in the works to mark the occasion. More to come on this soon!  :) 

15 albums

H/T to Almost Batten, who recently posted a list of 15 albums she listens to that will always stick with her. (It's actually "15 albums in 15 minutes," because you're not supposed to spend too much time thinking or writing about it -- but of course, brevity has never been my strong suit, lol...!) I told her this was a timely topic for me, since I just went through my vinyl album collection before handing it over to Older Nephew -- not that we don't still have a sizeable CD collection too. ;) 

Here are mine (in no particular order):

(I thought about adding links &/or thumbnail cover images, but I didn't want this post to take forever, lol -- if you're interested, Google or YouTube are only a click away...!):  

The Best of Herman's Hermits, Vol. 2:  Christmas 1966, my sister & I received a fabulous gift:  a record player, with two albums to play on it: the soundtrack from Mary Poppins (which we had recently seen), and (I detect a theme here...) an album of Christmas carols by Julie Andrews. But it was the 60s, and my mother had already taken me to see the movie "Help!" starring the Beatles, followed by "Hold On!" starring Herman's Hermits, thus beginning my lifelong love affair with British Invasion bands & music.  :)  And a few weeks after Christmas, I got this album for my 6th birthday.  It included a poster of Herman (Peter Noone), which has sadly gone missing over the years. The cover is battered & the record is scratched, but it's one of the few albums that I didn't turn over to Older Nephew, even though I have a Herman's Hermits greatest hits CD that includes most of the same songs. Peter Noone occasionally plays concerts at the local casinos;  I am determined to get to one of them one of these days & get him to sign the album for me. :)

Groovin' (The Young Rascals):  Following the Herman's Hermits LP, this was probably the second rock album my sister & I owned, and it's still somewhere in the depths of my parents' basement, although I recently managed to snag a CD version. As I blogged at the time, all four original band members reunited a couple of years ago for the first time in more than 40 years, and I dragged dh to see them here in Toronto. It was a fabulous show -- despite all those years apart, they were still in fine form -- and I could still sing along.  Perhaps the original blue-eyed soul band.

The Beatles, 1962-66 and 1967-70:  Released in the mid-1970s, these two greatest hits compilations are commonly known as the Red Album & the Blue Album. I grew up listening to Beatles music, but they broke up when I was 9 years old.  These albums were released a few years later, as I was entering my teens ( = prime record buying years), and they were actually the first Beatles albums I owned. I think this also holds true for many of my contemporaries (unless they had older brothers & sisters with copies of "Rubber Soul" and "Sgt. Pepper").

Dreamboat Annie (Heart): I wrote about this album two summers ago as part of my review of Ann & Nancy Wilson's memoir, "Kicking and Dreaming."  To recap: I LOVED "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man," which received radio airplay, BEGGED for it and got it for Christmas or my birthday when I was about 15. I loved the wailing guitars, and loved being able to sing along with a female voice (for a change!).  I still love this album.

IV (Led Zeppelin):  I bought this album when I was in high school for one cut alone: "Stairway to Heaven" (of course), which was always, always the last song played at every high school dance I ever attended. If you heard the familiar strains of "Stairway to Heaven" starting, you knew the night was over. and if that cute guy you'd been eyeing hadn't asked you to dance yet, well, better luck next time. But while it was a little "heavier" than my usual musical fare at the time, I grew to appreciate some of the other songs on the album too. It was an iconic album of its time, and was probably in most of my friends' record collections.

Rumours (Fleetwood Mac): This album was huge -- HUGE! -- when I was entering high school. I bought it at the Bay for $4.99 while I was staying at my aunt's house in the city to attend a provincial high school science fair, and my aunt came into my bedroom to find her toddler son (now a successful chiropractor) sitting on the floor & giggling over the photos of a google-eyed, beareded Mick Fleetwood on the back cover. ;)  Hearing the lazy, druggy intro to "Dreams" immediately sends me back to the beach, laying in the sun tanning and listening to the song on my transistor radio.  And while I bow to Stevie Nicks and her charisma, my all-time favourite Fleetwood Mac song is actually "Songbird," which closes the side one -- just Christine McVie at the piano with her soaring, crystal-clear voice. Amazing.

Boston (Boston):  One of my favourite scrapbooking gurus/bloggers, Cathy Zielske, recently devoted an entire blog post to the marvel that is Boston's first album. I loved this album when it first came out and played it to death. I still play it often, especially when I'm housecleaning, and anytime one of its cuts comes on the radio, I turn the volume up & sing along. (I wrote about this album before, here, as a segue to a more ALI-related topic.) 

Living in the U.S.A. (Linda Ronstadt):  As I wrote in this review of her memoir a few years ago, I adore Linda Ronstadt, in all her many incarnations -- country, rock, pop standards -- and have owned quite a few of her albums. This one was, I think, the first. With a wide range of cover tunes by artists as varied as Chuck Berry, Elvis Costello, Elvis Presley, Smokey Robinson and Warren Zevon, it showed off her amazing versatility.  The cover, showing Ronstadt in a pair of short-shorts, silk bomber jacket and roller skates, made her a sex symbol too. I am so sad that she can no longer sing because of Parkinson's disease -- but oh, what a legacy! 

Live at Budokan (Cheap Trick): I eventually had several Cheap Trick albums, but this was the first, and the most iconic, complete with hordes of shrieking Japanese girls in the background. I got to see them in concert a few times myself and while I don't think I ever screamed ;) I always enjoyed the show tremendously.

Breakfast in America (Supertramp):  Supertramp was a huge band during my teenage & college years, and this album was a smash hit, just as I was graduating from high school.  I took a trip to Ottawa in May that year, courtesy of the local Rotary Club, and whenever I hear these songs, I think of Ottawa and of driving around with my billet family's teenagers & their friends.  They couldn't understand why I wanted to go see the boring old Parliament Buildings instead of hanging out with them, lol.

The Cars (The Cars):  Another album I played to death and still love to sing along to. Probably the first "new wave" band I remember liking. Let the good times roll, indeed!

Rio (Duran Duran):  I was already in college when Duran Duran hit the bigtime, so I was a little beyond following them as teen idols. But the music was catchy, and those videos...!  I had both of their first two albums, and often played them in my dorm room as I was getting ready for parties. :) 

My Aim is True (Elvis Costello & the Attractions):  I actually first heard "Alison" in a cover version by Linda Ronstadt (see above). Eventually (having heard "Pump It Up" and "Radio Radio" played at various university socials (dances) and seen photos of this geeky looking guy with the King's name & a punk rock attitude) I decided to check out the original -- and I have been glad I did ever since then.

Darkness on the Edge of Town (Bruce Springsteen):  I had to get a Springsteen album in here, lol. It was hard to pick just one, but this was dh's favourite at the time we started going out, and it also included the first Springsteen song I remember hearing, when I was in high school (and still one of my favourites), "Prove it all Night." It also includes classics such as "Badlands" and "The Promised Land."

American Idiot (Green Day): I was in my 30s by the time Green Day came around, in the early 1990s. By then, my interest and ability to keep up with current music was fading :p -- but I came to like Green Day because their punky, hooky sound reminded me of some of the stuff I loved in high school and university. It was a refreshing jolt amid a lot of dance music and rap (which I loathe).  "American Idiot" blew me away -- the music, the concept, the messages, the attitude. I was glad to see them enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year.

This was not as hard as I thought it would be ;) -- I could probably have written about more. What are some of the influential albums of your life?