Before I transcribe my next installment of my Shanghai journal, I just want to say HAAAA! The Yankees got SWEPT! Blown away! By the Detroit Tigers in four games! Oh how I laughed when that smug-faced A-Rod grounded out in the ninth inning! He’d worked the count 3 and 1, he knew he could only […]

During my trip, I took along a notebook, like I did during Hajj, and filled it with my thoughts. Here’s the first entry: I’m writing this from the Nanjing Hilton which must mean it’s Tuesday, I think. (Oct.9th) Shanghai has a population of about 23 million. In a city! The whole country of Canada is […]

And to quote good ole Bugs Bunny: “Oh the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen!” More of that later… On the last day, getting ready to come back, my husband turned to me and asked, “So what did you learn from these ten days?” Hmm. The biggest thing I learned is the definition […]

A month ago my father asked me if I was excited yet about going to Shanghai for ten days, and I  just gave him a perplexed look. My parents have been all over the world. They basically drove every place in North America that a car can go. And when they got on in years […]

I once heard a writer describe life as a writer as being kind of bipolar in terms of sociability. You need SECLUSION in order to write, to delve deep enough to actually write anything worth while, but you need SOCIETY and SOCIAL STIMULATION to have something to write about. I know I’ve often felt it. […]

Today, for the very first time, I was described by someone, as a ‘mover and shaker’. LOL. And she meant it in the traditional sense of someone setting up meetings and making business deals happen! (as opposed to someone who just ‘shakes’ when they ‘move’) And wow, what a jarring thought it was, to think of myself […]

I was going to write a blog post about how as a Muslim, I try my best to counter all the negative images in the media by trying to uphold an example of what Islam really teaches us to be. I was going to talk about how hard it’s been growing up. How at first I […]

It’s been a long time since I wanted to watch a movie twice. Now that my daughters are all married and gone, and there’s just me and hubby and son, the estrogen factor is outnumbered by testosterone factors, two to one and that affects the type of movies we choose to watch. I really wanted […]

It’s never a good idea to critique a story at 12:30 am when you’ve got a frozen shoulder from being on the computer too long and you’re exhausted and downright cranky. Increasingly I have been getting pleas for help from aspiring authors and darn it, I can still remember what it felt like to be […]

The weight has been gained and regrets and recriminations are slowly making the rounds inside my skull. “If only you’d been less of a glutton! You could have kept the weight  you lost during Ramadan off!” They’re telling me. Having Ramadan in the middle of summer has left me feeling quite disoriented. Feels like I blinked […]