Friday 5ive- February 7, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week. Monday it was 59 degrees and a great day to run around and do errands, Wednesday it was freezing cold walking to work. I wish the weather would pick a lane and stay there.

1) The Sign of the Week was outside Olive and Bette's women's boutique. They always have an eye-catching sign and this one made me laugh. Cheers!

2) While looking for a pork loin roast for dinner (I went to four grocery stores before I found one at Fleisher's, a butcher shop), I saw two items from the Finger Lakes region at the butcher shop,  Syracuse Salt Co.'s Flake Salt and Red Jacket Applesauce. The applesauce was delicious with the pork roast, and it was nice to have a little taste of back home.

3) I went to see Tina- The Tina Turner Musical, about the life of music legend Tina Turner on Broadway. I've always been a Tina Turner fan, and saw her at Saratoga Performing Arts Center n the 1980's during her Private Dancer tour. Adrienne Warren was mesmerizing as Tina, not an easy task to portray someone so iconic. The show was fantastic, and she had the audience on their feet, singing and dancing at the end to Simply the Best and Proud Mary. If you come to NYC and want to see a show, this is the one. 

4) Last week was the series finale of The Good Place, starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell. I've followed this show for four years and I will admit to tearing up many times during the last show. It's such a beautifully written piece about humanity, what we owe each other, the value of friendships, and their version of the final Good Place was just perfection. Executive producer Michael Schur, who also worked on The Office and Parks and Recreation, is the next Norman Lear. If you liked his other shows, catch up on The Good Place on Hulu and Netflix, it is worth it. 

5) I read Ann Napoliatano's beautiful novel, Dear Edward, about a 12 year-old boy who is the only survivor of a plane crash that killed 191 people. He goes to live with his aunt and uncle and has to rebuild his life, along with his new friend Shay. It's a haunting, lovely story that intercuts Edward's life after the crash with the what is happening on the flight before it crashes. It is sad, but also an uplifting story about resilience. 

I just started a debut novel by Gretchen Berg, The Operator. Set in 1952 in a small town in Ohio, Vivian is a telephone operator, back in the days when operators had to connect phone calls for people. (There was no direct dialing.) She likes to listen in on conversations and one day she hears a shocking revelation about herself. I'm about a quarter of the way through and it's interesting so far, especially since Vivian's dad is from Syracuse and she and her husband lived in upstate New York where her husband was a prison guard. I hear Auburn makes a cameo appearance. More on this when I finish the book, which publishes in March. 

Stay safe and warm my friends, I know many of you are having some bad weather out there.