Retirement 101 – the gym

My spirits are lifted up by good conversation, art, music, and frequent visits to a gym nearby. A public recreation centre, it serves a local community that includes Chinatown and Little Italy, a Somalian community, Indigenous peoples, as well as well as other settler populations. The average salary in the area is a modest $34,000… Continue reading Retirement 101 – the gym

Love is a many splendoured vegetarian birthday feast that diverts our attention

A nine-course vegetarian feast. A birthday party for the wonderful Jillian Elizabeth. Chef Doreen Prei went above and beyond for this multi-faceted extravaganza for a dozen or so. Splendid dinner at Zinc Restaurant. Plus a brief winter of our discontent political detour to Alberta, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.

โ€˜inside this quietnessโ€™

Enjoying a visit by a poet so very much. Our conversations prompt me to remember my own formation as a writer and a woman. This is one of those unexpectedly powerful transitional moments that occur when we retire. You find yourself thinking about possible futures and then your past arrives as a lesson to guide you.

Dinner with Doreen: A Six-Course Feast

It started with a new friendship. And a dear friend whose cooking is legendary. What better excuse for a shared feast. With Doreen Prei returned to the Art Gallery of Albertaโ€™s Zinc Restaurant,* the menu lights up. The six-course tasting meal - a good idea, says my friend. And why not wine pairings too? A welcome extravagance.

A Feminist Flaneureโ€™s Passerelle

Wherein a woman walks and muses. The shape of the woods sounds like birds. Writers abound. The stories cross oceans and wave. All this to try to stem the tide in her head of climate catastrophe and the rise of authoritarian regimes here there & everywhere. Keeping a world on self-destruct at bay.

48 hours in a life unfold – a long read

What days - feasts of friendship, feminism and this. Sunday, 25 August It began with a brunch ...chez Sheena with her loving extended family. Xander grins when we stand back to back: Ha! surpassed the height of this petite doting auntie. After Ajayโ€™s crispy bottomed eggs, (a specialty, observes Shanda,) and other treats, we visit… Continue reading 48 hours in a life unfold – a long read