It’s been nearly three years since we moved across Canada and bought a cottage house on the outskirts of Halifax, and it has been a wild three years. I was going to list all the bad things, but will not because we all probably already know. Our thoughts lately are with our Ukranian friends and …
By last Thursday, it was predicted that Nova Scotia would have an ice storm starting sometime on Friday. We often get dire weather predictions and have had Nor’easters and winter storms now five weekends in the past six. I find it lovely for the most part and often stay up late, fire in the wood …
I was thinking about the ordinary today and realized that my days are not the languid, unstructured, and undisciplined days I spent when we moved here to Nova Scotia. They have some sort of routine now, leaving less time for things that I used to do but which also were sort of meaningless in the …
It is not even Christmas, but I’m over it. I have one lit reindeer in the bay window, plus a few pine cones. I have two Zoom chats with family coming up this week, which I am looking forward to. It means a wee bit of Malbec, or more than a wee bit, and seeing …
I just watched Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President, a documentary that came out last year. It was available up here in Canada on Kanopy. We get five free movies a month through Kanopy from our library, and they often have art house features and independent films. When I grew up, Jimmy Carter was a …
I recently rejoined the workforce after our big move to Halifax, Covid-19, and a receding job market made job-hunting tough. I am now being paid to write, imagine that, and the job is great so far. It’s a contract job that goes until July, after which point I plan to go visit Finn in Chicago …
Here it is, my favorite season, though I am not ready to let summer go–and my one and only grandchild has come into the world, brightening the first of autumn with more brilliancy! I never imagined myself a grandmother. It feels like something reserved for old people. I refuse to be or feel old, but …
The point of this post isn’t necessarily about pumpkin ale but about my usual theme: life revolving around the seasons. However, I did find pumpkin ale on sale already at the local liquor store, which was a surprise. Last year I didn’t find any until mid- to late September. This year I found a brand …
I’ll never forget my fascination with the first video games I ever played: Red Alert, Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Diablo I and II, and, eventually World of Warcraft (WoW)–to name a few. The kind of interaction offered in these lore-based games seemed like a good alternative to just sitting around watching something on T.V. As …
I have been rethinking how to sell books for a few years now. Like any sell-able product, books too can clash with environmentalism. Thinking of the latest space trip with former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose company doesn’t pay taxes, and whose motto seems to be to pollute space and use it as a rich …