I always vowed I wouldn’t be unapproachable like those high falutin’ authors I admired when I was just starting out! Those authors who you just couldn’t ask for advice because they were way up high on some mountain top and wouldn’t descend long enough to even say, “Boo.” The queries come in fits and starts. […]

Back in December, when I was in Singapore, the librarians took me out for dinner to a fancy schmancy buffet kind of restaurant. And as we gathered our food and sat down to enjoy we began talking about this that and the other, and somehow the topic of the privacy of emails came up. And […]

Phew! What a year it’s been. I’m exhausted! Doesn’t help that I started a new diet this week. I’ve been struggling along on limited rations, and it’s affected my speech patterns I swear! But then anything can affect your speech patterns. Lack of sleep, distractions like noisy special needs kids, all kinds of things can […]

So many people have asked me, since I got back, if I wasn’t concerned about being in Turkey, especially now with all the protests. The protests really caught me by surprise. It’s funny because last Friday, the day before we were leaving, we were at the only Chinese restaurant in the country, which is in […]

What with the wonders of modern travel, I’m writing this on the plane back from Istanbul. Still trying to digest what happened in Kapadokya. The last evening we were in Kapadokya, which is a wonderful little area where the people have carved their houses in granite chimneys formed 25 million years ago by volcanic action. […]

Hubby said I should fix my first post from here to indicate that yes, indeed, I’ve been talking about Turkey, but I can’t be bothered, so I’ll just mention it now. I’m writing this from Turkey. It certainly isn’t what I expected! Our guide is a petite lady with pretty good English, very secular, and […]

Wrote this post in pen, last night in a cave hotel in Kappadokya. At the time I was feeling relaxed and mellow. That feeling has since vanished Slow down, you move too fast Got to make the morning last, just Skipping down the cobblestones, Looking for fun and feeling groovy! You can’t believe when I […]

It’s like if workers come to do a job in your house, fix your furnace or dishwasher or something and they see a diamond lying there, in the open, something you’ve misplaced or forgotten about but could definitely use, and they just take it. Then they come back over and over again, to do more […]

is a film produced by Clint Eastwood that doesn’t seem to have garnered the attention I think it deserved. It really is a gem of a little movie! I love that it takes its time to storytell, for us to get to know the characters. Clint is fabulous as this racist old curmudgeon. In fact […]

Omigosh! Today I was invited to do some entertaining at the Islamic Society of North America (Canada) conference. So I dragged myself down to Mississauga. Before my gig in the children’s program I took a breath and went through the bazaar and the weirdest thing! I met Farkhanda! I’d been thinking of her for ages! […]