Our neighbor, Mona, who has been in the newsletter before, just texted, “The north wind is blowing the ice out.” We’ve been updating each other as Lake Ontario freezes — plates of ice coming together and breaking apart. It’s been below 0 Fahrenheit this week. Since we moved into this house, there have been two swans that occasionally visit from Lemoines Point. Earlier this week they came back, with 11 of their swan friends. The dozens of Canadian geese travel along the shore but the swans glide straight across the lake. David does a great imitation of their flamboyant entrance.
Guess it’s pretty obvious that we still don’t leave our house.
Khalil and I have been having “makeup parties” which works out because nearly a year ago when we went into lockdown, I said that my main quarantine goal was to learn to put on eyeliner, which I still haven’t done. He loves learning makeup terms, many of which are new to me, but it’s all wonderful because he now says things like, “Can we order a new beauty blender?” and, “I think you new more bronzer.”
We wrote a “book” the other day as a family about Davecave the frog, Ali the dog, Dave the shark, and Carl the octopus.
I’ve been relishing having some adults in the political rooms these last weeks and have been catching up on non-political podcasts, essays, books, and movies.
Some recommendations:
Migrations - The NYT describes this as “literary eco-fiction.” Ok, sure. It was a 10/10. I haven’t read a book that cut as deeply since My Absolute Darling in 2017. I want to buy this for everyone. If you do end up reading it, will you please tell me? I want to talk about it!
Heavyweight - This podcast has been a nice reminder of how complicated and tender we all are. I started at the beginning.
A Promising Young Woman - Rented this from Alamo Drafthouse on demand the other night while David had “guys night” which is when he plays his guitar alone on the other side of the house and watches subtitled _films_ on MUBI. I loved it.
A History of my Brief Body - I’m trying to read more by Indigenous Canadian authors and this has been one of my favorites.
This menu - what a total delight.
Yesterday, while Khalil had iPad quiet time, I made myself an espresso, put a pain au chocolat in the oven for 7 minutes so that the chocolate was dripping, and curled up under a blanket, and read Migrations. These pandemic days are hard but there are good moments each day that I try to soak in.
Wishing you a few of those cozy minutes today.
Love you.
Love you, friend, and I wish-upon-wish that Sarah was here to read along with you (I wish I could promise to read Migrations but life is so crazy right now that I'd be lying ;) ). I love the post, the photos, Honeypuppy, Khalil, and of course YOU!
Omg the pictures ❤️❤️❤️❤️. Ordered Migrations promptly after reading this post! Can’t wait to talk about it (maybe over my own pain au chocolat💗). Also been wanting to watch PYW, so glad to hear you loved it! Love you and thank you for this beautiful post!