Remembering
Today has been a day for remembering. My dad would have been 79 today, so I spent much of the day remembering him and what he meant to me. It’s just over a month since he passed away and the emotions of that and my recent journey home are still fresh in my mind. Today for me was about trying to remember some of the happier times and things that he enjoyed.
My dad enjoyed many things in life. Two things in particular that he liked were music and taking pictures. When I was in Orkney last month for my dad’s funeral my mum gave me his most recent camera and his iPod touch, both of which are pictured above. Both of these items were never far from his hand, especially his camera. He took lots of pictures, something that was very evident in the fact that we found dozens of HD cards when we were sorting through some of his things last month. Wherever he went he loved to take pictures of almost anything and everything as a record of where he’d been and what he’d seen. His love of music was quite varied, although he amassed a large collection of Salvation Army music on tape, vinyl, and CD. When our children were younger they were quite fascinated watching him listening to his music with his headphones on, because he would really get into it in a big way. When I got the iPod I was very curious to see what music dad had loaded onto it. There is a fair bit of SA band and songster music on it, but there is also a huge variety of other stuff too – Paul Simon, Boney M, and even a little U2! One of the albums I was replay happy to see there was one by The Household Troops Band of The Salvation Army, called ‘Blue Book Favourites’. SA Bandos will, of course, recognize what the ‘Blue Book’ is. Growing up in Orkney, our band played a lot of stuff from that book, and quite a few of them are on this album.
I started off today by heading out for an early walk before work. I took both the camera and iPod with me. It was a beautiful morning, so I took a lot of pictures and I listened to the ‘Blue Book Favourites’ as I walked along. It might seem a bit melodramatic to say that it was a very special time, but I don’t really care, because it really was. Some of the pieces I listened to were ‘Star Lake’, ‘The Pilgrim’s Prayer’, ‘Lloyd’, ‘Constant Trust’, and ‘Montreal Citadel’. Some of the pictures I took were of places that my dad had already taken pictures of when he visited here. It was a moving and meaningful start to the day for me.
During the rest of the day dad wasn’t far from my mind and I listened to more of the iPod music at work as well. Obviously I miss my dad a lot and probably always will. I learned a lot from his life and example and hope that I can continue that legacy as I endeavour to be the person that he encouraged me to be.
Bookish (and not so bookish) thoughts (May 2)
‘Bookish (and not so bookish) thoughts’ is hosted by Christine at Bookishly Boisterous. It’s just a round-up of bookish and other things from the previous week or so. Share a link there if you want to participate.
It’s hard to believe it’s May already, but not so hard to believe that I haven’t posted very much here in recent months. There are a variety of reasons for this, but I hope that I can do better at this in the months to come.
1. The above picture is the view from my mum’s house in Orkney. I spent a large part of April there due to the fact that my dad passed away in the first week of the month. He had been dealing with cancer for a number of years, but in late March was told that it was terminal. Thankfully his passing was very peaceful. I was just sorry that I didn’t make it there in time to see him one more time. I did have a great conversation with him on the phone about a week before his passing, talking about a number of things, including the state of Scottish football (soccer), Easter, along with a number of other things. He also, along with my mum, my sister and her husband, had a great visit with us here last October and was able to share in our daughter’s high school graduation. My visit to Orkney last month was one of mixed emotions, with plenty of tears, as well as laughter and memories shared. I was also able to catch up with many family members and friends whom I hadn’t seen for a while.
2. My reading has not been that great lately. I just haven’t really felt much like it. I never finished any books in April, so I’m well behind with my reading goals for this year. I have managed to get back to some reading again this week and I’m looking forward to finishing a few books this month.
3. One book I will definitely try to read soon is The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom. When my dad visited in October he started reading my copy, but didn’t get it finished, so I bought him a copy to take home with him. We shared an enjoyment of reading Albom’s books. We came across his copy whenI visited last month. Unfortunately he didn’t get it finished, so I will read it and finish it for him now.
4. Last week was a bad week for a couple of my favourite Toronto sports teams. The Leafs lost game 7 of their first round match-up against the Bruins, and TFC heartbreakingly lost the final of the CONCACAF Champions League on penalties. On brighter note, Liverpool finished off Roma today, 7-6 on aggregate, to reach the final of the European Champions League. Their opponents there will be Real Madrid.
5. The fifth season of Father Brown is finally on Netflix, so I started binge-watching it this week. I’m still waiting for the third season of Better Call Saul to appear, as well as the third season of Fargo. I watched the first two seasons of Santa Clarita Diet, which was pretty good, but different. It certainly wouldn’t be for everyone.
6. It looks like this year is going to be a good year for movies. We already saw Black Panther, which was excellent and are now trying to work out seeing the Infinity War movie. Hopefully we’ll manage to work out something for this weekend. Other movies we’re looking forward to are Ant-Man and the Wasp, Solo, and the next Fantastic Beasts movie.
7. Or daughter also spent some time Scotland with me, once she hd completed her first year of university. This week she started a job at a local factory for the summer to make some money for her return to university in the fall. She seemed to have a good first year and is enjoying the break from studies, even though her summer job will be demanding physically.
Book Beginnings and Friday 56 – Never Have Your Dog Stuffed (March 23)
It’s almost been a couple of months since I did one of these Friday posts, so my determination to post more often isn’t really working, I guess! The book I’ve chosen for this week is Alan Alda’s memoir Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned. I’ve had this book unread on my shelf for far too long, so it’s probably about time I read it. Added to this, we are big fans of M*A*S*H and have all 11 seasons on DVD, which we have just started watching again, but this time with our son for the first time. He, surprisingly, seems to be really enjoying it. One night recently we were watching the episode where Alan Alda’s dad was a guest star and I remembered having this book, so I thought it would be a good one to read as I don’t really know much about either Alan Alda or his father. I’m about half-way through at this point and finding it both entertaining and informative.
Goodreads has the following description:
He’s one of America’s most recognizable and acclaimed actors–a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing, during his eleven years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances.
“My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six,” begins Alda’s irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on, after early struggles, to achieve extraordinary success in his profession.
Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffedis not a memoir of show-business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only just begun to grow.
It is the story of turning points in Alda’s life, events that would make him what he is–if only he could survive them.
From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist’s shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can’t be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father, both personally and professionally, Alda learns the hard way that change, uncertainty, and transformation are what life is made of, and true happiness is found in embracing them.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about nature, good humor, and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any Alda has ever played on the stage or screen.
Now for this week’s excerpts:
Book Beginnings is hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader, who invites anyone to join in, saying: ‘Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author. Leave a link to your post. If you don’t have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.’
The beginning of Never Have Your Dog Stuffed:
My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that. Her detached gaze, the secret smile. Something.
This may seem at first read to be a funny beginning, but the reality is that it’s not, although I guess it is Alda trying to make light of things. Saying any more would just be spoilers, so I won’t!
The Friday 56 is a book meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are as follows:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.
It’s that simple.
From page 56 of Never Have Your Dog Stuffed:
I really scared her one day while she was out of town for a couple of weeks with my father. I wrote them a long, rambling, adolescent letter in which I talked about my obsession with books.
Coincidentally, Alda is talking here about his mother again. However, there is a lot more to this book than stories about his mother, thankfully. The unusual title of the book also makes sense when he describes something early on in the book that happened to him when he was a child. Anyway, I’m really enjoying this one and will probably get it finished this weekend.
Top Ten Tuesday – Books on My Spring TBR (March 20)
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a different topic is posted inviting the participants to come up with a list of ten things to do with the topic.
This week’s topic is ‘Top Ten Book on My Spring TBR’. The following are all books that I would like to read eventually. By putting them on my Spring TBR I’m hoping that I’ll get to them sooner rather than later.
- Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer – Richard Rohr
- The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto – Mitch Albom
- Rosie – Anne Lamott
- Where’s My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived – Daniel H. Wilson
- The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem – Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan
- Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews
- Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit – Henri J.M. Nouwen
- Monster (The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim #2) – Shane Peacock
- In the First Circle – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Outlander – Diana Gabaldon
Some of these have been on previous TBR lists, others are ones I picked up fairly recently, but really want to read soon. Monster is a review copy from LibraryThing, so I should read it soon. The Last Week is one I’m going to read next week for Holy Week. The rest I’ll do my best to get to soon, although I may be distracted by other shiny books instead!
Bookish (and not so bookish) thoughts (Feb 28)
‘Bookish (and not so bookish) thoughts’ is hosted by Christine at Bookishly Boisterous. It’s just a round-up of bookish and other things from the previous week or so. Share a link there if you want to participate.
1. It’s been over a month since I posted anything here. Although February is the shortest month, this year it seems to have just dragged on. A very close friend of ours – the Godfather of our children – passed away at the end of January. Although he had been ill for quite a while, it still came as a shock to us. He was one of my first Canadian friends and was also born in the UK. Because he had also immigrated to Canada from there, he was able to help me a lot as I transitioned to Canadian life 24 years ago. He will be sadly missed by us all.
2. Although I bought a fair number of books this month, for a number of reasons my reading was pretty poor. I only managed to finish three books. Hopefully I’ll get back on track soon, as my TBR pile just continues to grow. Some of my reading challenges for the year should help me to get going again.
3. Last weekend saw my ninth anniversary of becoming vegetarian. I can honestly say that it was one of the best things I did and I often wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.
4. I binge-watched the first two seasons of Fargo during the last moth or so and am hoping that season three will appear on Netflix soon. Meanwhile, I’m looking for something else to binge-watch. I managed to watch a few movies during the month, the best being Black Panther, which we saw in the theatre last weekend.
5. We’re into the third week of Lent and for the first time in a few years I didn’t write a post about how I intend to follow it this year. I was away on Ash Wednesday and I just couldn’t get my mind around it. I’m keeping it fairly low key this year, but the things I’m doing have been quite helpful so far.
6. I still have a $50 Indigo/Chapters card from Christmas burning a hole in my pocket. Each time I’ve been to Chapters lately there have been too many choices and I have come away empty-handed. There are a couple of books I’m waiting to be released, as well as a couple of others that I’m waiting to come down in price. It’s not like I don’t have enough books to keep me going anyway!
7. I’m hoping that Spring is just around the corner. Winter seems to have dragged on this year. It hasn’t been particularly bad, although there were a few vicious storms, but it just seems to have felt so long. We have no big plans for Summer this year, although we will be having some family visiting, which is something to look forward to. Also, our daughter will be home for the summer after finishing her first year at university, which will be something else to look forward to.
Book Beginnings and Friday 56 – The Hate U Give (Jan 26)
For this week’s combo post I have chosen The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I received a free copy of this earlier this week (I won it as part of a 2017 reading challenge). I haven’t started it yet, but plan to do that tomorrow, as long as I get my current read, Rowan & Eris, finished. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book, so I’m looking forward to getting it started. GoodReads has the following description:
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Now for this week’s excerpts:
Book Beginnings is hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader, who invites anyone to join in, saying: ‘Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author. Leave a link to your post. If you don’t have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.’
The beginning of The Hate U Give:
I shouldn’t have come to this party.
An interesting start. I wonder why not?
The Friday 56 is a book meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are as follows:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.
It’s that simple.
From page 56 of The Hate U Give:
Momma gets up and hugs him. “Thank you.” She walks him down the hall, toward the front door. “Be safe, okay? And text me when you get home.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sounding like our momma,” he teases.
“Whatever. You just better text me—”
“Okay, okay. Good night.”
Sounds like someone better not forget to text! Hopefully I’ll get into this one tomorrow. It sounds like it’ll be a great one anyway.
Top Ten Tuesday – Great Books I Read…But Can’t Really Remember (Jan 23)
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that is hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a different topic is posted inviting the participants to come up with a list of ten things to do with the topic.
This week’s topic is ‘Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About.’ I read a lot of books, but after a while I sometimes forget a lot about them. Some are probably forgettable anyway, but others are great reads. It’s a little frustrating not remembering the ones that I really liked. I’d love to reread some of them at some point, but with an ever-growing TBR pile this is not always possible. Anyway, here are ten books that I know I really enjoyed at the time, but sad to say can’t remember enough about:
- London: The Novel – Edward Rutherfurd
- Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
- The Man Who Was Thursday – G.K. Chesterton
- The Samurai – Shusaku Endo
- How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization – Franklin Foer
- How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It
– Arthur Herman - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard
- Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess – Will Samson
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference – Malcolm Gladwell
- Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer Is Awakening a Generation – Pete Greig & Dave Roberts
Book Beginnings and Friday 56 – Rowan & Eris (Jan 19)
It’s about time I did one of these combo posts, so to get going again I’ve chosen ‘Rowan & Eris’ by Campbell Jefferys. I received a review copy of this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. I’m almost half-way through it and it’s quite enjoyable so far. GoodReads hs the following description:
It’s a simple story, a journey, a search, a pursuit. There is a man from Perth, an American woman, their daughter. The woman is intent on creating chaos wherever she goes, through urban art, and her work extends to creating chaos in her own life by having a daughter. The man is intent on finding his daughter and in doing so finds himself and the songs inside him. It’s a road trip novel, starting in Perth, Australia, and traversing America, Canada and Europe. It is also a meditation on art, creativity, success, growing up and taking responsibility.
On to this week’s excerpts:
Book Beginnings is hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader, who invites anyone to join in, saying: ‘Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author. Leave a link to your post. If you don’t have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.’
The beginning of Rowan & Eris:
It’s early in the morning, and a slither of winter sun is coming through the curtains, painting a thin yellow streak on the wall that stays the same width, but gradually grows brighter.
I like this very descriptive beginning, although it gives very little away.
The Friday 56 is a book meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are as follows:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.
It’s that simple.
From page 56 of Rowan & Eris:
“How tall are you?” he asked, turning another page.
I remembered how Nola had said it: “Six-six.”
“You play basketball?”
“No.”
“Volleyball?”
“I’m all height and no coordination.”
This little conversation made me chuckle. Not all tall people are good at sports, I guess. I have very little planned for tomorrow, so I’m hoping to get the rest of this one read then. I have quite a pile of other books that I need to get into soon as well. The TBR pile never gets smaller!
Bookish (and not so bookish) thoughts (Jan 17)
‘Bookish (and not so bookish) thoughts’ is hosted by Christine at Bookishly Boisterous. It’s just a round-up of bookish and other things from the previous week or so. Share a link there if you want to participate.
1. It’s a New Year and so far so good. I posted a few thoughts at the start of the year about my goals and they are going well. I’ll keep revisiting it from time to time and see how I’m getting on.
2. I signed up for a bunch of reading challenges again this year and am looking forward to getting some diverse reading done this year. I also pledged to read 75 books at GoodReads and the 50 Book Pledge.
3. The above picture is some free book mail I received today. The Shane Peacock book is from Early Reviewers at LibraryThing. The other two are a couple I won through one of last year’s reading challenges (Full House Reading Challenge 2017). I’m waiting on another one to come from that challenge.
4. Our Christmas was fairly quiet, once the crazy busyness of our work was over. Our daughter was home from university for a couple of weeks, which was great. We didn’t do much or go far, but stayed in and watched a few movies, caught up on some TV, did some reading, and played a few board games. It was a nice relaxing time anyway.
5. I’m still keeping up with my bookstagram stuff on Instagram. I enjoy joining monthly challenges there and playing along with some of the tags. I’ve made some new ‘friends’ and met some interesting people.
6. Thanks to one of my friends in Elliot Lake I got a couple of free tickets for a Leafs game last month. So my son and I got to see the Leafs beat the Sharks in a shootout at the start of the month. It was an exciting evening.
7. I’m looking for something to binge watch on Netflix now that I’ve finished Stranger Things and This Is Us. I started watching Friends, as I have never ever watched an episode of it before. It seems to be OK, but I’m thinking of binging on Fargo next, as it is back on Netflix in Canada again. There’s also a bunch of movies that have been added that I might need to check out. Speaking of movies, we went to the theatre during the week between Christmas and New Year to see The Last Jedi. I wasn’t disappointed.
Top Ten Tuesday – 2018 Bookish Resolutions/Goals (Jan 16)
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was formerly hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It is now being hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week a different topic is posted inviting the participants to come up with a list of ten things to do with the topic.
This week’s topic is ‘Bookish Resolutions/Goals’. Obviously I enjoy reading, but I also like to challenge myself each year by setting a few goals and signing up for some challenges. Some of these are easy to do and help me keep on track, whereas others sometimes take me out of my comfort zone and stretch me a bit, which isn’t a bad thing. Here are some of the reading goals I set for 2018:
1. Read at least 75 books. This is the same goal I set for last year and I surpassed it by 2 books. I thought about increasing it this year, but in the end decided that 75 is a good number.
2. Write better reviews. One thing I started last year, which was fairly successful, was that I decided to write a short review on GoodReads of every book I read. Some of these were very short and said very little. So, this is something to work on.
3. Take my TBR lists more seriously. At various points during the year I share my TBR lists, but more often than not many of the books on these lists end up not being read. This year I’d like to think that I could read at least 75% of the books on these list. Otherwise, what is the point of compiling them.
4. Read the books I borrow from the library. At a rough estimate, I probably read about a quarter of the books I borrow from the library. Either I need to read more of the books I borrow or cut back on the number I take out.
5. Finally read ‘In the First Circle’. I have owned In the First Circle, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, for about 8 years. Each year since I bought it I have put it on TBR lists and vowed that this would be the year I read it. It seems quite intimidating, but I’m determined that this will be the year it finally gets read.
6. Keep up with my reading challenges. Last year I got behind with my challenges and managed to only complete 3 out of 4 that I signed up for. This isn’t the end of the world, but I’d like to be able to keep up with them better this year. It was mad dash in December to try and finish them all and I don’t want that to happen this year.
7. Read more of the books that I own. Like many book lovers, I buy more books than I read. Although I’ll probably never realistically get all my books read, I need to take a look at my shelves and try to read some of the ones that have been unread there for too long.
8. Only request review books that I am going to read. There are so many places out there to get free review books that it can be tempting to over request. This year I need to not be tempted so much, although I won’t stop requesting altogether.
9. Read more of my Penguin Classics. I collect Penguin books, but often I never get round to reading many of them. A few years ago I received the 80 Penguin Little Black Classics as a gift. So far I have only read 9 of them. This year I’d like to try and read at least one of them a month. I also need to look at my Penguin shelf and pick a few out to read.
10. Enjoy reading. This is probably the most important goal on this list. There’s no point in reading if it’s not enjoyable, so I need to make sure that in the midst of all the challenges and goal I have lots of fun along the way. Happy reading!
