In the past two months, four podcasts that I follow have recorded their final episodes ever. Four! Two of those were the kind of podcasts that I would actively look forward to and would download and listen to as soon as I could, and those two are as different as can be: Dear Prudence, an advice column show that featured some really unhinged questions, and Cookbook Club, which can only be described as the Schweddy Balls SNL sketch, but with cookbooks and food topics. And now they are OVER and I am low-level bereft.

The other two podcasts – Fat Mascara and A Thing or Two – were recent finds for me. Oh yay, these podcasts are so fun, they are exactly what I was looking for, I thought, mere weeks before they announced that they were shutting down their chatty operations. I am sure if I wanted to I could go back and listen to a decade’s worth of a back catalogue, but I don’t want to. I would rather sulk, I guess.

Not quite as distressing but almost, one of my longest-loved podcasts, Forever 35, switched co-hosts a year ago, and I have tried, lord, how I have tried to embrace the new woman with open arms, but friends, I cannot. The whole energy and focus of the podcast has changed in a way that I don’t enjoy, and I find the new host grating. Stop complaining about your dog and spend some time with him is a thing I said out loud, while walking my own dog, to the podcast host who cannot hear me.

While sulking, I listened to a music podcast that talked about – of all things – General Hospital. I have not, in the entirety of my life, watched a single daytime soap episode, much less the longest-running one of all time, but I did know about the supercouple Luke and Laura, thanks to my endless perusing of my grandma’s stack of Star magazines in the eighties (“the paper“). What I did not know, and what was alluded to in the podcast, was the scandalous way they met, and so of course I immediately looked it up, and was startled to discover that they met when Luke RAPED Laura. Their wedding remains to this day the most-watched daytime television episode, with over thirty million viewers, including Princess Diana, and it guest starred Elizabeth Taylor. This celebrated soap opera couple started with a RAPE? It’s true the 70s and 80s were a different time and yet this rape of an 18-year-old woman by a 33-year-old man doesn’t really feel like the start of an epic romance that one might wish for.

As a brief aside, I have previously discussed the Peloton hashtag #therapistsofpeloton, which never fails to amuse me, but the other day I was riding with a person whose leaderboard name was none other than Therapistrides. I went back to search it to see if I had been hallucinating, so early in the morning, and found not only that person but also Therapistdad, which felt infinitely worse. Are these people just totally lacking in SNL Jeopardy awareness? Or are they, like my son suggested, not therapists but actual rapists who have found community through spin bike exercise? And you’re SHAMING them, Mom, he said.

Back to General Hospital: the podcast also mentioned a plotline in which an evil scientist was building a machine which would freeze the world and plunge its inhabitants into an Ice Age, which made me think a) is that evil scientist actually Dr. Doofenschmirtz, and b) where can I find recaps of every plotline on General Hospital? The latter was easy, but overwhelming; a quick search revealed thousands of such websites, Reddits, and blog posts.

In other news, I hit a blip in my 100-Day Project. When I decided I was going to play the piano daily for 100 straight days, I did not have any travel planned; but because our semi-last minute road trip to visit my parents, I missed four days. I gave myself grace for this: obviously pianos are not portable, and I just thought I’d add on the four days at the end. But then! Then two Fridays ago I was busy all day and I simply forgot, and this forgetting made me feel completely derailed. I have, as I see it, three options: a) add another day to the end and just get on with my life, b) start over from Day One, or c) lie down on the Train Tracks of Shame and allow myself to be run over by the Steam Engine of Failure. I am going to go with a), mostly because we have so many travel plans coming up that I am not actually going to be home for 100 consecutive days over the next year and a half.

I am home for the remainder of the summer, however, which is wonderful because it means I can enjoy my garden every single day.

I have been able to harvest a lot of spinach for my smoothies, but I seem to be able to only get one cutting before it starts to bolt, which means I’ve reseeded several times. I think we are entering in the “too hot for greens” season, unfortunately, but on the upside, this is great for my jungle-like tomato plants and for the peppers. Also on the downside:

Not a single chive sprouted! What the what. Well, they can’t all be wins.

Weekly Reading

Woes and wins continue with reading! Well, “woe” might be a bit much for this first read, more like “not a win.”

Deep Cuts. First off I will say that I finished this book on a Sunday night, and when I went to write a review of it for my records, I couldn’t remember how it ended. Less than ten hours had passed and I couldn’t have told you the ending. So. There’s that. This book takes place in the early 2000s and deals with the indie music scene, and when I say “deals with” I mean “we are deep in the details of songwriting, music writing, becoming a music critic, recording, and performing.” DEEP. At its heart is a story of romance and of friendship, of support and betrayal, and of being heard. It got a bit in the weeds for me, although I did like the dissection of songs and lyrics. The author is from Hope, BC, which was very exciting for this BC writer!

Show Don’t Tell. I have enjoyed Sittenfeld’s earlier works, most notably her novel Romantic comedy and her short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It, and so my expectations for this new collection of short stories were high. I was not disappointed! This exceeded all my hopes; this could not be more Nicole-coded if it tried! Short stories about women’s lives, the ordinary made extraordinary, slice-of-life tales. It was an absolutely perfect book for me, no notes! I loved every word of every story but particularly this line: “Other people have unhappiness inside them, and they want to get rid of it, and it comes out as meanness.” Brilliant.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. This is a very emotionally draining and moving book by a renowned Egyptian-Canadian journalist and author, about Western involvement in the Middle East generally, and in Gaza in particular. It questions the West’s ability to effectively dehumanize and dissociate from frank horrors, but, apart from asking for a ceasefire, offers no answers. And maybe that’s the point. This is an important read to be sure.

A funny thing I’ve noticed, living in Retirementland, that every weekend is a long weekend/ no weekend is a long weekend/ what is a weekend. The same could be said for mid-week holidays, like when Canada Day falls on a Tuesday. It nearly went completely unnoticed by me, which felt unacceptable given the state of things these days. I celebrated by ditching my black wardrobe for red and white:

And although I don’t typically imbibe on a weekday, what better way to mark the holiday than with a local (VERY LOCAL) rose?

Red plus white equals rose; Canada Day Rose should be a thing, and I’m making it so. Elbows up, nolite te bastardes carborundorum, etcetera. I hope you all have a beautiful week, with more wins than woes. xo