Books Read in 2020: Two-Star Reads

When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey: Synopsis from Goodreads: A moving, darkly funny novel about six teens whose magic goes wildly awry from Magic for Liars author Sarah Gailey, who Chuck Wendig calls an “author to watch.Keeping your magic a secret is hard. Being in love with your best friend is harder.Alexis has always been able to rely on two things: her best friends, and the magic powers they all share. Their secret is what brought them together, and their love for each other is unshakeable—even when that love is complicated. Complicated by problems like jealousy, or insecurity, or lust. Or love.That unshakeable, complicated love is one of the only things that doesn't change on prom night.When accidental magic goes sideways and a boy winds up dead, Alexis and her friends come together to try to right a terrible wrong. Their first attempt fails—and their second attempt fails even harder. Left with the remains of their failed spells and more consequences than anyone could have predicted, each of them must find a way to live with their part of the story.

This was quite disappointing, given that the description sounded really cool - Witches! Girl power! Queerness! I was a bit unsure how to review it, given that a lot of people really, really liked it. I didn't,  but I can see how it would be important and very welcome for some. I didn't like that the teenaged boy whose death - accidental, but wholly undeserved - begins the whole story was sort of an "oh well, so sad" addendum to the 'girl power' thing, but there are many books where women are killed off to advance a man's emotional development. I found the protagonist pretty annoying, but I was much like her at the same age. I felt like it was almost trying too hard to cover multiple angles of representation, but representation for many of those is long overdue, so.... yeah. I did love Alexis's relationship to her family.

Dead to Her by Sarah Pinborough: Synopsis from Goodreads: Marriage can be murder…SOMETHING OLDMarcie’s affair with Jason Maddox catapulted her into the world of the elite. Old money, old ties, old secrets. Marcie may have married into this world — but she’ll never be part of it.SOMETHING NEWThen Jason’s boss brings back a new wife from his trip to London. Young, attractive, reckless — nobody can take their eyes off Keisha. Including Marcie’s husband.SOMETHING YOU CAN NEVER, EVER UNDO…Some people would kill for the life Marcie has—what will she do to keep it?

Nope. This is an author I keep trying to give one more chance, because she wrote some cool twisted stuff a long time ago and because I keep confusing her with another author I like more. This was fine for what it was, but I'm just not into the psychological thriller based on adultery and sex, and it went on for way too long and then the end was like, um, what? Done. Too many books in the world. 

Snap by Carol Snow: Synopsis from Goodreads: Madison Sabatini thought she knew who she was: an almost-sophomore with a bright future. The newest photographer on her school paper. A shopaholic with great hair and a fabulous wardrobe. Then, in a flash, everything changed.  Now she's stuck in Sandyland, a gloomy beach town in the middle of nowhere, living with her parents in a crappy hotel "suite." Instead of spending the summer with her friends at home, she's hanging out with pink-haired Delilah, an artist who works in a shop called Psychic Photo, and a skater boy named Duncan who's totally not her type. Except, maybe he is . . .Determined to make the best of things, Madison throws herself into her one passion: photography. But when strange figures start appearing in her pictures—people who weren't there when she snapped the shots, people who are later reported dead—she begins to question everything about who she is . . . and who she wishes she could be.

Interesting concept, but the fact is that there are so many really good tween and young adult books now that that's not enough. The characterization was sort of flat and obvious and nothing other than the supernatural plot thread was the least bit nuanced or surprising. It was a lunch-time library read from work, so no loss.

Wonderland by Zoje Stage: Synopsis from Goodreads: If Shirley Jackson wrote The Shining, it might look like this deliciously unsettling horror novel from the acclaimed author of Baby Teeth. A mother must protect her family from the unnatural forces threatening their new and improved life in a rural farmhouse.The Bennett family - artist parents and two precocious children - are leaving their familiar urban surroundings for a new home in far upstate New York. They're an hour from the nearest city, a mile from the nearest house, and everyone has their own room for the very first time. Shaw, the father, even gets his own painting studio, now that he and his wife Orla, a retired dancer, have agreed that it's his turn to pursue his passion.But none of the Bennetts expect what lies waiting in the lovely woods, where secrets run dark and deep. Orla must finally find a way to communicate with - not just resist - this unknown entity that is coming to her family, calling to them from the land, in the earth, beneath the trees... and in their minds.

Started out promisingly but then was slow and repetitious and then somehow both vague and over-explainy at the same time. I think I could sort of sense what she was going for, but the execution was sadly lacking. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was annoyed that the daughter was named Eleanor Queen - her explanation about Eleanor of Aquitaine was understandable if the middle name was just mentioned, but SHE CALLED HER THAT REGULARLY, EW, SO PRETENTIOUS.

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht: Synopsis from Goodreads: The city of Elendhaven sulks on the edge of the ocean. Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily. A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart and long pale fingers yearning to wrap around throats. A monster who cannot die. His frail master sends him out on errands, twisting him with magic, crafting a plan too cruel to name, while the monster’s heart grows fonder and colder and more cunning. These monsters of Elendhaven will have their revenge on everyone who wronged the city, even if they have to burn the world to do it. 

This was a bitter disappointment, by which I mean I disappointed myself. It sounded SO COOL and I thought I was going to love it SO MUCH, and it was on hold as a library ebook and it came in JUST IN TIME to read in Spooky Season and then I just couldn't connect with it. It was absolutely creepy, and weird, and it should have been right up my alley. I can still call up the image of the city in my mind. And yet I did not like it. I did not want to pick it up and keep reading once it was put down. It was a struggle to finish it. I consider this a personal failure. 

Girding My Loins for the Book Posts

 Well, it is a new year. Same as the old year so far. I don't make resolutions, except insofar as I make resolutions every day - to try to go to bed and get up at what normal people consider a reasonable hour, to eat more vegetables and get more exercise, to donate money to charitable organizations and fight against structural inequality, to smite my enemies and learn how to shoot fire from my fingertips, and to organize my house so next year we can find the Christmas tablecloth in time for Christmas dinner. 

New Year's was quiet but nice. Matt concocted a recipe for salmon that is amazing and is going into our regular rotation, and I made lobster fettucine. We were stuck on what to do for dessert, then decided on doughnuts because most of us like them more than more traditional desserts and Angus doesn't get Tim Hortons in the States. We played Poetry for Neanderthals again - I was a bit worried that it was too soon and it would be less fun, but it wasn't. We played boys against girls and Matt drew his first card and looked at it and started laughing and couldn't talk and basically ran out his time laughing with Angus gazing at him in consummate disgust. He accused Eve and I of using Female Telepathy because we kept guessing correctly with very few words. Then he tried doing the same thing but staring at Angus didn't work and Angus just got mad. 

New Year's Eve, woo-hoo

We finished the evening on Zoom with the people that are usually here for New Year's - Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve was really weird, the camera kept panning to the crowd and it was like four people. The closed caption writer was either a Russian bot or intentionally punking the viewers. During Doja Cat singing Say So I read "let me chest my breast right quick" (it was supposed to be 'check my chest, my breath'). Then they came up with "now that the champagne cork has been pooped" and "happy flu year". Eve, my little teen-aged seventy-year-old, stayed up until midnight under bitter protest ("HOW IS THERE STILL AN HOUR AND A HALF LEFT" "I HAVE BEEN AWAKE FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE"). 

New Year's Day recovery

Other than that, we've been painting the other half of the kitchen, which is chaotic but no one can come over anyway, so why not? I have been sleeping a lot and reading a lot and occasionally I feel guilty and lazy and confused about where all my cleaning and organizing energy from November went (remember Matt told me to pace myself because this time I wouldn't run out of cleaning energy and not clean again for six months and Swistle agreed with me that he was wrong? WE WERE RIGHT, SWISTLE). Then I think well heck, that was only two months ago, I can coast for a few more weeks and end up with an  acceptable-for-me ratio of industriousness to slothfulness. Plus I'm just too tired to be anxious. I bounce between being nauseous, weepy and homicidal from perimenopause-induced lack of sleep to sleeping fourteen hours a day. Today I asked Eve if she was all set for when she had to be up for online school tomorrow and she said "tomorrow's Sunday". I stared at her in open-mouthed shock for half a minute and then went and unpacked my lunch and took my badge off the corner of the table where it was waiting for me to drive to an empty school at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. 

I have started getting up and walking outside or on the treadmill most days because then even if I feel crappy and out-of-sorts and unaccomplished for the rest of the day, at least I went for a walk. 

So the book posts. I gave some thought to not doing them this year. I'm sure reading people would be just as happy if I just picked the ten best or something, and non-reading people don't care in any case, and it takes a lot of time, and it's January so I'm in a bit of a What's-the-Point-of-Literally-Everything Mood ANYWAY, and it would probably make more sense if I do what Nicole does and just mention a few books every week. But fortunately or unfortunately I am a bit obsessive and somewhat of a completist, and I find making lists relaxing, and I can do this while rewatching Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Book total for this year was............drum roll...........

141!

I thought this would be a record. It was not. It's the most of the past few years, but apparently in 2014 I read 181. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-ONE? What the hell? Angus was fourteen. Eve was eleven. Did I just not parent them that entire year? I was having pretty bad insomnia for a few years there, so maybe I just read instead of sleeping? 

I started off this year with an organized plan for reading a good variety of genres and sophistication levels. My Book Bingo Facebook group was useful for focusing on books I meant to read that fit into categories. I was determined to read more female authors. Halfway through the year I kind of forgot about all the planning and just read whatever, but a few months ago (I think) someone mentioned the female authors thing and I tallied what I had read and still had a pretty good women-writer total. We'll see how it ended up. I feel pretty good about the overall quality of what I read - my spooky-books for spooky-season reading in October was really fun. 

Should I have a better plan for reading in 2021? Probably. Will I? Meh. Concentrate on women writers and non-white writers. Revisit a classic or two that I missed in university (I'm thinking maybe Vanity Fair this year, and maybe take another run at Trollope - I love saying I'm taking my favourite Trollope to the beach, but I finally tried to actually read Trollope last year and bleah - all I remember is something about patches and butts, the appeal is totally lost on me.)

Do you have a favourite book from 2020?

Merry Happy Whatever

 There is actually a Netflix Show with this title now which totally ripped off how I used to sign off on my Christmas cards because sometimes I can't bring myself to use conventional greetings or valedictions.

We didn't have snow (in fact, the boys played catch earlier in the day) and we didn't have my sister and her family, but we had settled down to that, and otherwise it was a really nice Christmas. Angus is here and my parents came on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Christmas Eve we do finger foods and we played the Boomers vs. Millennials Quiz Game and everyone actually knew some answers, which was good, and the wrong answers were even funnier, which was better (What movie did Jodie Foster win her first Academy Award for?" my dad: "S....Streetcar... you know... she was a prostitute" Me: "Do you mean Taxi Driver?" My dad: "streetcar, taxi, whatever" (It was actually The Accused). There was a question about a British graffiti artist and Angus answered 'Banksy' and I was shocked and he said "that's the only British graffiti artist I know", as if I still wouldn't be impressed that he knew even one. I guess college has made him more worldly.

Then my parents and the kids exchanged gifts because my parents wouldn't be there the next morning. They gave Eve an Oodie, which she immediately put on and then was immediately irritated that Lucy thought this just made Eve into a giant walking Lucy Blanket. We got my dad some of those tiny chocolate bottles with booze inside for old time's sake, because I remember thinking they were the height. Angus got a new golf club - my parents helped him buy his first real set of clubs when he was home in the summer and using golf as a consolation for not being in New York playing baseball for the Geneva Redwings. He was very happy with it.

Matt drove my parents home and we hung out for a bit more and then the kids pretended to go to bed so I wouldn't have to stay up late and wait to put out the presents. I remembered the year I thought it would be fun and nice to wrap all the presents on Christmas Eve with a prayer of thankfulness that I am not that much of an idiot anymore. I realized that I had bought way too many presents again and consoled myself with the thought that 1)pandemic and 2)my kids are really nice, thoughtful, grateful, unentitled people despite my best efforts to turn them into monsters so whatever, we'll go minimalist next year (ha ha like fuck we will). 

I was up before BOTH kids on Christmas Day which, for anyone who knows us is super weird. We made coffee and tea and waited until Eve came down and then woke up Angus. Their stockings are giant affairs made by my mom when they were babies, and I wrap everything, so opening the stockings is just as much fun as the big presents (and I still couldn't fit all the stocking stuff in the giant stockings, refer back to my Present-Buying Problem). There's always some things that I think are nice but the reaction I get is bigger than what I anticipated - this year it was the purple Black Panther golf balls for Angus that he thought were insanely cool. 

We facetimed my sister's family to open our gifts from each other, which was really fun. My sister got Morse code necklaces that spell out Fuck Off for Eve and me. I got her David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day because she is a chemo pharmacist in a hospital and I thought the short, hilarious essays would be good for her mental health. I got my niece this mug, which was a big hit, and my brother-in-law this shirt which we ended up getting for almost everyone because Matt almost asphyxiated himself laughing so hard when I found it. I also gave my niece a voodoo doll ornament to smite her enemies. My nephew we gave Cat's Cradle and my niece told him "oh, that's Vonnegut - if you read it in public you'll get chicks". 

The biggest hits of the things they didn't know they were getting were probably the cold-brew coffee maker for Angus (he drank the rest of Angus's coffee cold every morning when he was home during lockdown), and the photo printer for Eve - she and her five friends are making their own yearbook). 

Lucy made it her mission to sniff and lick every single present before it was opened. She opened her own present and was visibly excited by the new toy (the video is ADORABLE but apparently too big to upload, goddammit) which made Eve exclaim in exasperation that capitalism and the Thrill of the New SHOULDN'T WORK ON DOGS. She eventually wore herself out and crawled under Eve's new fuzzy hoodie and used her new socks for a pillow.

My parents came back in the afternoon and we had a really nice dinner - we did the turkey and they did the sides. We did Christmas crackers and Eve was thrilled with her tiny deck of cards and made Angus play Go Fish with her. 

My parents are awesome.

After dinner Eve insisted we play her new game Poetry for Neanderthals - you have to get your team to guess a word but your hints can only be words of one syllable. If you use more than one syllable you get beaten with an inflatable club. It's harder than it sounds - you think you've got the hang of it and then you find yourself saying 'weather' or 'money'. The funniest was probably Matt saying "my day, your day. Hat" and then stopping. We thought he might be having a stroke, but he thought that was sufficient for us to guess "birthday" (me: "um - 'day you were born?' him: 'shut up').

Angus disappeared halfway through the night because I had asked him to wait to shave his beard (and leave the goofy moustache) until after Christmas pictures.

We had a poinsettia and a bottle of Oyster Bay chardonnay (that my mom and Matt drank Christmas Eve) and Nanaimo bars for remembering Nana Barb. We used Nana's Cowslip Spode china for Christmas dinner. Eve drew a poinsettia picture for Matt (Nana Barb used to fill the house with them). She drew me a picture over the music for Everything Changes from Waitress, which was the last musical we saw (and adored) before lockdown, and led to this text from her the week after:

So we still got to have family and laughing and eating and drinking and remembering. Then everyone went home and we kissed our kids goodnight and watched Her, which wasn't Christmassy but was really lovely and sad, which seemed appropriate. 

And now the province is in lockdown for 28 days, so settling in for a long winter's nap. Peace and goodwill to everyone.

Surly Thursday Yes I Know it's Friday SHUT UP

 I took a big old handful of melatonin last night because this week has been FUCKING FRESHLY-SQUEEZED HELL for sleep. I slept in way too late, which SHOULD have made me happy but I felt guilty even though this was precisely what I was shooting for. I got up and decided to go for a walk. I didn't take my phone because living in the moment, blah blah blah. These are the things I saw that would have made amazing photographs: a beautifully-shaped tree, stripped branches crisp against the sky, with a black bird perched at the very top knowing damned well he was cutting the finest of figures; a line of geese flying south, their bodies driving smoothly across the sky, their wings moving like clockwork and flashing in the sunlight like metal; a splendidly dressed outdoor Christmas tree. 

Yes yes I know, beauty in the ephemeral, I saw it with my mind and it can live in my memory, HELL NO, my memory is garbage, I am bringing my phone EVERYWHERE from now on.

My feet and back hurt. They usually hurt more at this time of year, what with the baking and hunched-over Christmas-card writing, and also inevitably some school's library tech has some kind of emergency and I have to work a bunch of extra hours on my feet, and I don't really want to do it because it will hurt, but I want to because it's fun and also money, and it always is fun and does hurt, but usually at this time of year my feet and back hurt because of EXTRA MONEY, is what I'm saying, and this year it's just regular old senescence. 

Usually I print out a bunch of wallet-sized photos on our printer to stick in Christmas cards. I forgot that I have a new computer this year because Matt bought me a Chromebook for Christmas last year (which I appreciate, it's been great for the most part) and for some reason it seems that Chromebooks don't have the capacity to print multiple pictures on one sheet - I could be wrong, but the people on the message boards don't seem to have any suggestions. So I ordered prints from Black's, not as early as I would have liked, but it should have been early enough. They said to expect shipping delays, which fair enough, but they haven't even shipped, a week and a half past when they should have. First world problems, but not impressed, especially for blaming the pandemic for poor business practices. I've always resisted printing a photo Christmas card, not because I don't love getting them, but because I like buying boxes of Christmas cards and writing a little something in each one. At least next year I'll know to order extra early, and not from Black's, hmmph.

But on the way home from my walk, I realized that, although we don't have a tree anymore, we have a giant saskatoon berry bush and a hydrangea, so I actually DID have somewhere to hang the outdoor Christmas ornaments my parents gave us. 

Then we had pizza with the kids and watched Die Hard four (Live Free or Die Hard hee hee hee) which is definitely NOT a Christmas movie, but was very fun and had Bruce Willis AND Timothy Olyphant, yum - surprisingly it had an eighty-plus Rotten Tomatoes rating. Die Hard five (A Good Day to Die Hard, HA HA) is also available but the Rotten Tomatoes rating is like six - we're still going to watch it, obviously, but we'll keep our expectations low. 

Then Eve and I turned on all the twinkly lights in the house and started gingerbread construction, because she and her friends have this gingerbread house tradition, (also here) and apparently it's going forward even if it has to be outside in December and everyone has to have their own house, and there isn't a gingerbread house kit to be found in the city - I'm a little embarrassed to admit how long it took me to think "um, I can just bake gingerbread like I do every year, but, like, wall and roof shaped". 

A little despair, a little hope. A little surliness, a little gingerbread. A house made with love that will probably collapse. Seems about right for this time of year. 

Inconvenient Bodies and Unsettled Minds

 I meant to post earlier in the week. The endoscopy drugs sent me loopy for a couple of days and then we were a little stressed about Angus. Dude has been THROUGH it the past couple weeks - he went to his girlfriend's place which is sort-of between his college and here to spend Thanksgiving and then write finals remotely and hang out a bit before coming home for semester break: first he got a weird rash on his torso and face, which should not be a big deal, both my kids are rashy and I think Eve had one at the same time, but of course we're all on high alert for some weird Covid resurgence and he's across a whole-ass border, and it was niggling at us. Then he figured it was probably from a hot tub, and it went away. Then he hurt his back doing squats and I was unaccountably livid - fucking seriously? You HAD to go and squat while lifting the weight of a medium farm animal over your head NOW? AGGGGHHHHHH! THEN a couple days later he woke up sick to his stomach with body aches and a pounding head, so Matt and I waved a white flag in the air for a bit and stared into space for a little and made some whale noises (Eve does this when things suck and she swears it helps). He had been planning to come home on the tenth so he would be done his quarantine by Christmas and could see my parents, and this was now probably not going to fly, which was frankly the least of our worries at this point.

Somewhat miraculously, he felt better quite quickly (food poisoning? Mild stomach virus? Squats poisoning?) and got home on Friday, which sent us all into an exultant frenzy for a few hours and then we all went to bed and slept almost around the clock. 

So the endoscopy. If you'll recall, the last time I tried to do it without sedation, somehow believing that I would be able to use deep breathing to master my autonomic nervous system (I'm eighty percent sure I didn't use that term correctly but idgaf) which is a laugh, I can't even master myself a decent night's sleep at the moment. 

So this time I was going to be all smart and take all the drugs, which should have meant the procedure would be a piece of cake. It was not so much a piece of cake, unless we're talking Cake Wrecks (I would link to it, but the first half-dozen cakes are perfect and beautiful and you have to scroll so far down to see the fat snowman cake and I just don't understand anything anymore). First of all it was much later in the day and not eating was fine but not being able to drink any water really bothered me this time. By all accounts they gave me the drugs right from the start, which my dad had done the week before and said meant he didn't remember anything). I remember everything, and it seemed pretty much as bad as last time. They squirted the vile throat-numbing stuff in my throat, then put in the bite guard, then started feeding the tube down my esophagus. I kept seeing this giant blinking neon sign that said WRONG WRONG WRONG. 

"Stop it" I told my autonomic nervous system (or whatever) "Remember the doctor said our job was to remember that we can breathe through our nose"

ANS: "THE DOCTOR IS A LYING WHORE"

Me: "Don't call her that, she's a lovely woman with a killer white bob and it's a crime that she has to keep it under a face shield GAHHHHH IT'S STILL COMING."

Turns out it's really frikkin hard to breathe through your nose with your mouth open. And I have tiny airways, which is why I have sleep apnea, and she was really jacking the camera around to make sure she saw everything. I felt like the drugs kicked in at about the same point they did last time, and I felt really wonky and out of sorts for a good day and a half afterwards, so I might just do what I did the first time if I have to do it again. 

I usually work on Mondays, and since we're not seeing classes right now and our work isn't time sensitive I went in on Wednesday to make up my hours. One of the secretaries came back to the office while I was having lunch and looked really confused and said "it's not Monday, is it?" And, still wonky, I very nearly said "of course it is, otherwise I wouldn't be here" - caught myself just in time. I also booked an appointment online with my chiropractor and when I got there the receptionist told me I was actually booked for NEXT week. They were able to fit me in anyway, and the other woman in the office was eager to commiserate with me about never knowing what day or date it is. 

So here I am, a bit untethered in time but reasonably certain that I am at my kitchen table with all my chicks in the nest for the time being, and my back hurts a little less and honestly, things could be worse. 

Had the Biscuit? Taking a Powder? In a Jam?

 I just baked biscuits in my new oven for the first time. I decided to try the convection feature, and couldn't figure out why they weren't baking and then I realized that DUH, the oven is not the problem, the problem is that after ten years of using the same very simple recipe I suddenly forgot the correct temperature and was baking them in an oven that was a hundred degrees too cool. Miraculously, baking them at 350 for eight minutes and then heating up the oven to 450 and leaving them in for another, I dunno, six or seven minutes, seems to have resulted in biscuits that are at least edible, if not flawless. 

The powder room is almost put back together - the organizer shelf doesn't match now so we're probably going to spray paint it, and we need a toilet paper holder and a towel hanger, but the toilet and sink are put back (nice features in a bathroom) and Matt is now in recovery - that was an intense bout of work for a tiny-ass little space. Eve is still slightly disappointed that we didn't paint the linoleum floor.

Friday night I got stuck watching this series and eating Squish candy. It was a little bit funny and a little bit sad and hard not to be judgy about these girls making consistently awful life choices, even though bad life choices seem infinitely more glamorous when Irish accents are involved. As the night and the show wore on, I realized that given their upbringing and role models it wasn't terribly surprising that it was difficult for them to advance in life, and maybe the only real loser here was the one staying up way too late binge-watching judgily and eating a positively stupid amount of frog gummies. 

I bought a bunch of homemade jam from a choir fundraiser to help out a teacher at my school and because the jam sounded really good. The jam is really fucking good. I've decided that instead of doing that thing where we leave the jar in the fridge until it's old and questionable, I will bake biscuits daily or thrice weekly and we will eat jam until the jam is gone. So far we have tried whiskey plum and blueberry Earl Grey and they are divine. 

Oh look, I have brought this incredibly random post full circle. I have an endoscopy tomorrow and I'm a little anxious, not because it's going to be a big deal because I know it's not, just for the general pain-in-the-assness of going to a hospital and waiting around while wearing a mask. I'm going to go read something distracting. 

Where Everybody Knows Your Name But You Can't Feel Your Toes

 We have a regular Tuesday bar night with friends - three other couples and one dude whose wife likes us but not enough to see us once a week when she could be embroidering something or playing video games, and a more-recently-added divorced woman. If I recall correctly, many many years ago I said to Collette "you know how in tv shows people just, like, go out for a beer? Do people do that in real life? We should do that in real life." A few days later she called me on her way home from somewhere and told me to meet her at a nearby bar/restaurant and we had a beer and it was fun. We started roping other people in, and of such mundane beginnings are years-long traditions born. We went to that bar for years, through four or five waiters/waitresses (Bridget, Derek, Riley, Samantha...) and then it closed (rude!) and we were nine characters in search of an author for a bit (funnily enough we ended up at the Barley Mow once and were waited on by Riley's girlfriend). A few places didn't work out for one reason or another. A new place eventually opened in the old location, which is prime - some of us can actually walk to it - but it has trivia nights on Tuesday, which we did once and it was fun, but we didn't want to have such a structured thing every week.

We finally settled on one of two Broadway Bar and Grills. There's a nice big round table we can usually snag, the wings are good, and the wait staff was starting to remember us (the first time Bridget said "am I bringing you a Stella, Allison?" I nearly wept with joy. Then fucking Covid entered stage right.

In lockdown we did Zoom bar nights. The first couple of times were fun.  People wore funny hats. People put up funny backgrounds. It was nice to see other faces. 

But it got old fast. There were technical difficulties. Only one person could really talk at once. Jokes that would work in person were inaudible or fell flat in this medium. I hated having to stare at my own face - I couldn't stop fiddling with my computer trying to find a more flattering angle (Remember the movie Tootsie? "I'd like to make her look a little more attractive, how far can you pull back?" "How do you feel about Cleveland?") After a few weeks I started dreading and then avoiding Zoom bar night. It would end up making me feel bad about myself and dislike people I actually love.

So the minute we could meet outside, we did. People brought their own coolers with drinks and snacks and couples sat six feet away from each other - only two people's backyards were big enough to facilitate this, so we rotate between those two. Over the summer was great. One night we were sitting there and Collette said she could hear four different conversations going on and she was so happy.

Dave would pretend to freeze once in a while in case we got nostalgic for Zoom.

Of course, there was the inevitable reality that Winter Was Coming. What would we do?

Well, we're Canadian. We slapped on some layers and and it was business as usual.

A few days ago Collette sent a message in the What's App saying we were supposed to bake pumpkin pies this week to test whether fresh or canned pumpkin made a better pie. I had no memory of this being broached and I was briefly annoyed - it's almost December! I have Christmas baking to start! I don't bake pies! - and then I remembered that this is why I love this group - we do weird random shit all the time and it keeps life fun and interesting. But I also felt like being a rebel and not doing exactly what I was told so I decided I would bake a pumpkin cheesecake instead. Then no one could find any pie pumpkins in stores, so only Collette was going to bake a pumpkin pie, but by now I was invested in baking a pumpkin cheesecake.

So I did. 

The plate was just for a glamour shot - I divided it up into tupperware with plastic forks for each couple. Collette made an Alton Brown pumpkin pie that was really good and a weird-ass pumpkin pie from the sixteen hundreds with eggs and rosemary and thyme and apple and currants that was... still actually really good. We ate quickly and put our mittens back on. It was freaking cold tonight. I'm sort of achy this week and the cold and rain made it a bit worse, and I'm not entirely sure how much longer we can keep this up. It's sort of weird but oddly fun to have to come home and thaw out from bar night, and the more we can keep seeing our friends the better our mental health generally is.  

Does anyone know where I can get one of those Saint Bernards with a whiskey barrel around its neck?