Friday 5ive- November 18, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.   

1) The guys in my husband's family were on their annual golf trip in Florida this week and while they were at a restaurant at dinner, they ran into Frank Thomas, retired first baseman for the Chicago White Sox. While this is interesting enough, what makes it crazy is that Thomas is my younger son's all-time favorite athlete. Thomas is the reason my son's favorite team is the White Sox (instead of the NY Yankees or NY Mets, hometown teams). When he sent me a text saying that Thomas was in the restaurant, I thought he was pulling my leg until he sent a photo. The group hung out at the bar with Thomas and said what a nice guy he was. It's always wonderful when someone you've looked up to your entire life turns out to be everything you hoped. A million to one odds he'd be at the same restaurant as my son, a million to one odds Jerry. (Seinfeld reference)

2) Next weekend would have been my dear friend Lisa's birthday. She was my best friend during my college years, and we had so many unforgettable times (and probably some we did forget due to too much alcohol haha). One of those times was when I went up to stay with her at her family's camp on Hadlock Pond, and we went to see Tina Turner in concert at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. We danced and sang along, and had so much fun. Lisa's laugh was so contagious and her smile lit up a room. When I saw that Mattel was releasing a Tina Turner Barbie doll, I ordered it and  now it sits on my shelf. Every time I see it, it reminds of my friend and all of the great times we had. I really miss her.

3)  My Broadway tour continued this week with a trip to see the revival of Into the Woods. The cast for this amazing Stephen Sondheim show is a who's who of some of the most talented Broadway performers-  Stephanie J. Block and Brian d'Arcy James as the Baker's Wife and the Baker were perfection, Krysta Rodriguez played a plucky Cinderella, Kat Geraghty's take as Red Robin Hood was delightful, Gavin Creel and Andy Karl were flat-out hilarious as the Prince brothers, and Patina Miller was astonishing as the Witch. She had a real Eartha Kitt vibe in the first act, and her transformation in Act II was astonishing. The first act has so many laughs, and Act II's more somber turn is sobering. I loved this show, if you come to NYC during the holiday, you must see this show before it closes on January 8th.

4)  I binged all ten episodes of Netflix's The Crown. Imelda Staunton carries on in the fine tradition of brilliant actresses who played Queen Elizabeth in this series (Claire Foy and Olivia Coleman, who both won Emmys for their performances). Jonathan Pryce was wonderful as Prince Phillip, and I thought Lesley Manville's performance as Princess Margaret in episode 4- Annus Horriblis- was simply heartbreaking. She should win the Emmy for sure. There is so much of interest in this season, even outside of the royal family. I liked the episode about the Fayed family and Sydney Johnson, who was a valet to King Edward. Charles and Diana take center stage this year, and Dominic West as Charles and Elizabeth Debicki as Diana are excellent. I felt that each character was portrayed empathetically, you do feel for all of them, except for Martin Bashir, what an awful man. What did you think of The Crown? 

5) I read Silas House's brilliant novel Lark Ascending this week. Set in a not-too-distant future, where the United States (and the rest of the world) has been ravaged by fires, civil war and a government run by the Fundies (fundamentalists who impose their extreme beliefs on the citizens), Lark and his parents flee to Ireland on a boat with other refugees. Once there, Lark is the only survivor and he makes his way across Ireland on foot, where he meets up with a stray dog (dogs have all but disappeared) and a woman on her own. It's a dystopian tale, where Lark and his companions have to avoid other survivors who scrounge for food and shelter and the people who want to lock them up. The writing is simply gorgeous, and this is a book you will find yourself sinking into, as the world around you recedes. It has a similarity to Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but Lark Ascending seems more urgent given the realities of our times, and Lark continues to hold on to hope. It's one of the best books of the year. 

Have a safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving.

Friday 5ive- November 11, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) The weather has been so crazy once again. On Monday, the temperature was 72 degrees and it was strange to see ice skaters at Rockefeller Center skating when it was so warm out. I'm sure there were people wearing shorts and t-shirts out there.

2) Times Square always has something interesting to look at (besides the Naked Cowboy), and now they have three huge globe displays, featuring the Broadway shows Aladdin, The Lion King, and Wicked.

3) I saw Six, the Broadway musical about the six wives of Henry VIII. It was so cleverly done, each of the six wives sang a song about their lives and why they had it the toughest out of the six, set in a rock concert setting. (It's hard to beat Anne Boelyn and Katherine Howard, the two wives who were beheaded.) Each actress had an amazing singing voice, it was hard to choose who was the best. The small female band consisted of a keyboard player, guitarist, bassist, and drummer in keeping with the Girl Power theme of the show. The songs were fantastic too, and you can bet that people will be searching for more information on these ladies when they get home. I did enjoy the two page spread in the Playbill titled A Little Bit of Her-Story that gave us a brief sketch of each of the wives. Go see this one for fun, music, and a little bit of history that you can throw out at your next party to impress your friends.

4) I binged all ten episodes of Bad Sisters on Apple TV+ this week. The Irish series follows the Garvey sisters who, in a desperate move to save their sister Grace from her horrific husband John Paul, attempt to kill him. The series moves back and forth in time, starting with JP's funeral, and we see why each of the sisters had their own reason to want him dead. (John Paul may be the most despicable character on all of TV.) Throw in two brothers (the owners of the insurance agency where JP had a life insurance policy) who suspect foul play and have their own reasons for wanting to find out exactly how JP died. Sharon Horgan, who created and starred in Amazon Prime's series Catastrophe (which I loved), plays the oldest sister Eva who raised her sisters after their parents died in an accident, and she is fabulous as always.  All of the performances are excellent. I actually had my hands over my mouth in the last episode when we find out how JP died. I did guess one twist, but the end shocked me. This one lives up to the hype. 

5) I read Laurie Notaro's humorous memoir Excuse Me While I Disappear- Tales of Midlife Mayhem. Notaro never fails to make me laugh, and this book hits particularly close to home for anyone in the 50s and 60s. Her tales of trying to figure out how to cast her favorite show (Escape to the Chateau) from her phone to her TV without flying in her nephew from Phoenix to do it, keeping track of all of the pills she takes for "sore eyes, dry eyes, dry mouth, rubber-band knees, achy toes, low blood pressure, high blood pressure", and all of the post-menopausal women who can't sleep and are on Facebook at 3am exchanging recipes, painting their toenails, and posting pictures of puppies that are not theirs, had me laughing out loud, sometimes in recognition. The schemes she comes up to stop life's annoyances are worthy of I Love Lucy. If you are "of a certain age" as they say and like to laugh, this one is for you. 

Have a safe, healthy week. Get your flu shot if you haven't already.

Friday 5ive- November 4, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. The weather has been glorious here this week, 70 degrees in the first of November is all right with me.

1)  Wendell Pierce is one my favorite actors, so I was excited to see him as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman on Broadway this week. I lucked out and scored a $35 rush ticket and got a great orchestra seat to see this magnificent production. Pierce was absolutely mesmerizing, and his interpretation of an iconic role in American theater will go down as legendary. You could hear a pin drop in the house during his powerful monologue. Sharon D. Clarke was his equal as his wife Linda, a proud woman who fiercely loves her husband. Everything about this production was fantastic. It was interesting how differntly this play resonated with me at my age now than it did when I read it in high school. I admit I had tears rolling down my face at the end of the show, and I wasn't the only one, I could hear sniffles all around me. This show is a must-see, and I would have gladly paid full price to see it.

2) After watching Matthew Perry's interview with Diane Sawyer last week, I got a ticket to see him interviewed by former Entertainment Weekly editor-in-chief Jess Cagle about his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing at Town Hall on Wednesday. The discussion was fascinating (Cagle is a terrific interviewer), and Perry seemed more at ease and comfortable in this setting than with Sawyer. He also looked better in person I thought, other than his pants and socks were too short, which he joked about. He also joked when drinking his water saying "Vodka- that's an odd choice". Perry spoke of his twenty some-odd years he has spent in and out of rehabs, and the $9 million dollars he has spent on booze and drugs and rehabs trying to get sober. When Cagle asked him why he wrote the book now, Perry said that he finally feels secure enough in his sobriety to do it. He told of taking 1800 milligrams per day of opioids, a number that is unfathomable. He said he often felt three things throughtout his life that contributed to his problems- he felt needy, that he wasn't enough, and that he didn't matter. The crowd was made up of many millenials who began watching Friends during the pandemic, and they felt free to yell out Chandler's lines during the discussion. I started reading his book, and it is enlightening and well written. More on that next week.

3) Early voted began this week in NYC, and I voted on Tuesday night after work. The process couldn't have been easier, and the NYC Board of Elections did a great job making it run smoothly at my polling place. Tuesday is Election Day (why is it not a national holiday?), and if our democracy is to survive, we all have to play our part and vote. I hope you will. 

4)  I just watched the last few episodes of Netflix's Derry Girls, and I know I wrote about it a few weeks ago, but the three season series finale was so brillantly done it deserves another shout-out. This season concludes with the characters voting in a referendum on the Good Friday Agreement as to how Northern Ireland should be governed. It was hoped that this agreement would end the violence that plagued the country for years. There's even a special surprise guest at the end. Seriously, watch this series, you won't be sorry.

5)  I'm still on my nonfiction kick, reading Ann Hood's memoir Fly Girl about her years working as a TWA flight attendant during the anything-goes 1970's. The things the women in that job had to put up with would shock people today. Hood shares her experiences at the training school in Kansas, where the competition to get into the school was tougher than getting into Harvard. They had to learn everything about all the different types of aircraft they would be working on, and any small infraction could lead to being dismissed from school. Once they got their "wing" (singular, only pilots got to wear two wings on their lapel), they could exit their flight only to find a supervisor waiting for them just outside the jetway ready to weigh them to make sure they were under the maximum required weight or measure their skirt to make sure it wasn't too short or long. One of the most interesting things I learned was that for first class passengers, the flight attendants had to slice chateaubriand tableside, and toss salads in the aisle. Now you can barely get a bag of chips. Hood loved her time as a flight attendant (until the end), traveling the world and frequently able to take her parents with her. The experiences she shares in Fly Girl will make you nostalgic for a time when people dressed up in fancy clothes to fly as you look around the airport and see people looking as if they are going to a sleepover at a friend's house and it's bedtime. 

Have a safe, healthy week and don't forget to VOTE.

Friday 5ive- October 28, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1)  Sunday is Halloween and there are lots of homes on the Upper East Side decorated for the holiday. There is one house near our apartment that decorates for El Día de Los Muertos- Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday that celebrates the welcoming back of the souls of the deceased for a brief reunion on November 1st. 

2) You know when you go to a wedding, and the bride and groom give all the guests a small gift? Back in the day it used to be something like Jordan almonds wrapped in small bag. We recently attended a wedding where the guests all received an appropriate and useful gift- a corkscrew and a wine cork. The bride and groom love wine, so this is such a perfect gift and one that we personally will use frequently. We'll toast to Gerard and Cheryl when we open our wine.

3)  We're trying to eat more healthy and this week I made a recipe that Food Network star Katie Lee Beigel created for Weight Watchers- Lightened-Up Chicken Parmesan. She uses ground chicken, spreading it out and baking it in a round skillet. Then she tops it with marinara sauce, a little low-fat mozzarella and parmesan cheese and bakes it a little longer. It was delicious, and it tasted very similar to Quality Italian's version that we enjoy at their restaurant. We'll have this again.

4) On another food related item, a bakery called Crumbl opened near us and every time I have walked by their store, there has been a long line of people down the block waiting to get in. I wanted to stop and get some cookies to bring into work, but I didn't have an hour to wait in line. I'll keep you posted when I finally make it inside the store. It sure smelled good walking by.

5) I'm on a nonfiction kick this week. I read When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe. The authors have written articles in the New York Times about the mega-management consultant corporation McKinsey, and they give an excellent overview of the beginnings of the company, which has grown into the largest and most powerful consulting company in the world. One of the biggest issues with McKinsey is that there is so much conflict of interest- they worked with a Chinese construction company that built man-made islands that China militarized in the South China Sea while they were advising the Pentagon, which has major concerns about these islands. They worked with Purdue Pharma, the infamous company that unleashed much of the deadly opioid crisis on the United States, (advising them on how to get their pharmaceutical reps to get doctors to write more prescriptions) while at the same time working with the FDA who oversees pharmaceutical companies, without disclosing to the FDA that Purdue was their customer. It's a fascinating book, and fans of the Hulu series Dopesick will want to read this one. 

Have a safe, healthy week, and Happy Halloween.

Two books featuring strong women at a crossroads

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

The leaves are turning, the weather is cooler, it’s getting dark out earlier, and now we have more time to stay inside and read. This month’s Book Report features two books about strong women facing difficult times in their lives.


Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope WWII mysteries is one of the few series I will always read, and her latest book, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy is a fantastic standalone novel. The last Maggie Hope novel, The Hollywood Spy, had Maggie in WWII Los Angeles, where she tangled with Nazis. Mother Daughter Traitor Spy tells the story of Veronica and her mother Violet during WWII. 

When Veronica makes a bad personal choice, she loses her job in New York, and she and her widowed mother move to Los Angeles, closer to her uncle. Veronica unintentionally finds herself as secretary for someone who is heavily involved in the Nazi movement in the United States.


Meanwhile, Violet's lovely embroidery catches the eye of a Nazi leader's wife, and soon she is designing and sewing clothes for many of the women's friends. Horrified by the things they are hearing, Veronica and her mother go to law enforcement and end up working as spies for the US military.


I found myself wanting to know more about this time period in Los Angeles after reading The Hollywood Spy, and was so pleased to see that Susan Elia MacNeal was continuing to tell us more about this intriguing time in history in Mother Daughter Traitor Spy, based on the lives of a real mother-daughter team.


As I read this terrific story, I could not help but see the connections between what was happening politically in the 1940s and what is happening in our country in the last few years, and that adds to the importance of this book. I didn’t realize how many followers the Nazi had in America prior to and during WWII, it was eye-opening and honestly frightening. Mother Daughter Traitor Spy is a must-read for historical fiction fans.


Another author whose work I never miss is Anne Leigh Parrish. Her previous novels (Our Love Will Light the World, The Amendment and A Winter Night) dealt with families living in the Finger Lakes region in contemporary settings.


Her latest novel, An Open Door, is an historical novel set in the aftermath of WWII. When we meet Edith she is a young woman working at the United Nations in New York City, and married to Walt who is studying to be a lawyer and living in Boston. 

Edith enjoys her freedom working in New York and living with her husband's widowed aunt. Many people question why a married woman would choose to live and work in a different city than her husband, including her husband who pressures Edith to return to Boston.


After having watched her mother being stifled by her marriage to Edith’s overbearing father, she did not want to live a similar life. When she returns to Boston, Edith intends to continues her PhD studies in literature, but women at that time were discouraged from such a higher level of education. She saw that “the problem was what the world expected women to be, which was always less than a man.”

Unhappy in her marriage and with her life in general, Edith “wished that knowing where you didn’t belong meant knowing where you did.” When an opportunity to buy the neighborhood bookstore (along with two other people comes along), she sees this as a chance to do something more meaningful and fulfilling with her life. Edith’s life begins to revolve around the bookstore, and as someone who works in a bookstore, I so enjoyed reading about the joys, and the trials and tribulations of owning a bookstore.


No one writes characters better than Anne Leigh Parrish, and Edith is no exception. Parrish takes the reader into the heart and head of her characters so brilliantly that we relate and understand them, even when they do things with which we disagree. Edith is not perfect, and she does things that people will find objectionable.


Parrish writes so beautifully, I found myself returning time and again to her words, like this quote from her mother- “One thing I’ve learned is that kind people love kindly; careless people love carelessly; cruel people love cruelly.” She always gives her readers something deep to ponder.  I give An Open Door my highest recommendation.


Mother Daughter Traitor Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal- A

Published by Bantam

Hardcover, $28, 336 pages


An Open Door by Anne Leigh Parrish- A+

Published by Unsolicited Press

Trade paperback, $17/ Kindle $6.99, 267 pages

Friday 5ive- October 21, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1) Sunday was a beautiful day in NYC so we took a walk through Central Park. It was so good to see the park filled with people, and it seemed like everyone was celebrating a birthday, we ran into mutliple celebrations..

2) The Center for Fiction hosted a discussion between Silas House, about his book Lark Ascending, and one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver, about her novel Demon Copperhead. I read an early copy of Demon Copperhead, and it is Kingsolver's best book yet, a contemporary retelling of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. Her young protagonist deals with a mother who is an addict, living in a broken foster care system, poverty and the beginnings of the opioid crisis in Appalachia. I haven't read Silas House's book yet, but it sounds fascinating. It's a dystopian story about a young man who leaves the United States for Ireland, seeking refuge from devastating fires and political persecution  where he walks across the country with a dog he finds. The discussion was fascinating about two epic books, and what it means to be a writer from Appalachia. I watched it on YouTube, but I wish I had been there in person.

3) I love getting book mail, and this week I received my Stories & Suspects box filled with fantastic mystery books from Bantam. It features the new book from Susan Elia MacNeal, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy, about a mother-daughter duo living in Los Angeles during WWII who end up spying on people involved in the Nazi movement for the US government. It has a lot of resonance for events happening today. It also has a new crime drama  by William Landay (I liked his Defending Jacob), a psychological suspense from Catherine Steadman (The Family Game- a Book of the Month selection for October), a locked room mystery by Jilly Gagnon (All Dressed Up), and their Buzz Pick, a debut novel from Erin E. Adams titled Jackal about missing girls in a Rust Belt town. The box was sponored by Tony's Chocolonely, one of my favorite chocolate treats.

4) Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy is back on Sunday nights on CNN, and we are enjoying traveling to the different regions of Italy. The first few episodes took us Calabria, Sardinia and Puglia and we've seen a lot of seafood dishes this season. 

5)  I adore Mary Beth Keane's books, and her upcoming 2023 novel, The Half Moon, is wonderful. Malcolm and Jess are a happy couple living in Gillam, a small town a hour upstate from New York City. Jess desperately wants a baby, and after several expensive and emotionally draining IVF tries doesn't undertstand why Malcolm is willing to give up on their dream. Malcolm's dream is to own the Half Moon, a bar he has worked in for years. They are at a crossroads, and the novel explores how that came to be and where it is headed. It is  phenomenal, I read it a little bit at a time because I did not want this fantastic book to end. I wanted to stay with Malcolm and Jess forever. 

Have a great, safe, healthy week.

An Open Door by Anne Leigh Parrish

An Open Door by Anne Leigh Parrish

Published by Unsolicited Press ISBN 9781956692341

Trade paperback, $17.99, 267 pages

An author whose work I never miss is Anne Leigh Parrish. Her previous novels (Our Love Will Light the World, 

The Amendment and A Winter Night) dealt with families living in the Finger Lakes region in contemporary settings. 

Her latest novel, An Open Door, is an historical novel set in the aftermath of WWII. When we meet Edith she is a young woman working at the United Nations in New York City, and married to Walt who is studying to be a lawyer and living in Boston. 

Edith enjoys her freedom working in New York and living with her husband's widowed aunt. Many people question why a married woman would choose to live and work in a different city than her husband, including her husband who pressures Edith to return to Boston.

After having watched her mother being stifled by her marriage to Edith’s overbearing father, she did not want to live a similar life. When she returns to Boston, Edith intends to continues her PhD studies in literature, but women at that time were discouraged from such a higher level of education. She saw that “the problem was what the world expected women to be, which was always less than a man.”

Unhappy in her marriage and with her life in general, Edith “wished that knowing where you didn’t belong meant knowing where you did.” When an opportunity to buy the neighborhood bookstore (along with two other people comes along), she sees this as a chance to do something more meaningful and fulfilling with her life. Edith’s life begins to revolve around the bookstore, and as someone who works in a bookstore, I so enjoyed reading about the joys, and the trials and tribulations of owning a bookstore.

No one writes characters better than Anne Leigh Parrish, and Edith is no exception. Parrish takes the reader into the heart and head of her characters so brilliantly that we relate and understand them, even when they do things with which we disagree. Edith is not perfect, and she does things that people will find objectionable.

Parrish writes so beautifully, I found myself returning time and again to her words, like this quote from her mother- “One thing I’ve learned is that kind people love kindly; careless people love carelessly; cruel people love cruelly.” She always gives her readers something deep to ponder.  I give An Open Door my highest recommendation.

Thanks to TLC for putting me on Anne Leigh Parrish's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Review tour schedule:

Monday, October 3rd: @whatlizziereads

Monday, October 3rd: @spaceonthebookcase

Wednesday, October 5th: BookNAround

Thursday, October 6th: @thebphiles

Friday, October 7th: @abduliacoffeebookaddict23

Monday, October 10th: Girl Who Reads

Tuesday, October 11th: @mom_loves_reading

Wednesday, October 12th: @suzylew_bookreview

Thursday, October 13th: @fashionablyfifty

Friday, October 14th: Kahakai Kitchen

Monday, October 17th: @lindahamiltonwriter on TikTok

Tuesday, October 18th: Bookchickdi

Wednesday, October 19th: @nurse_bookie

Wednesday, October 19th: Books, Cooks, Looks

Thursday, October 20th: @pickagoodbook

Thursday, October 20th: @tammyreads62

Monday, October 24th: Bibliotica

Tuesday, October 25th: @cmtloveswineandbooks

Wednesday, October 26th: @wovenfromwords

Thursday, October 27th: Run Wright

Friday 5ive- October 14, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive,  a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. As I look outside my window, it's a glorious autumn day, shining sun and temperatures in the 60s.

1)  I put a bag of Paul Newman's popcorn in the microwave and the bag burst open in the microwave. Luckily it was near the end of the popping process so there weren't unpopped kernels all over the place. If this is a new design where you can serve the popcorn right out of the bag, it appears to be a failure.

2)  I wrote out and mailed forty postcards this week, encouraging women to make a plan to vote. Thanks to Moms Rising for sending me the prepaid postcards with the addresses. I hope you have a plan to vote in this most important election this year, and if you want more information, go to MomsRising.org. 

3)  It's that time of year to get your flu shot. About ten years ago I got a bad case of the flu, and after that I have gotten my flu shot every year and have not had a problem since. I didn't even feel the shot go into my arm, that's how good Helen is. My husband and I both got our shots together, it's a fun date night (or rather, early date morning.)

4)  We have been waiting for the return of the third and final (say it ain't so) season of Derry Girls on Netflix. The show is a sitcom about a group of teenage friends and their families from Londonderry in Northern Ireland during the 1990's. I laugh so hard at this show, and Sister Michael, the school principal, is my favorite. Liam Neeson makes a great cameo in one episode as a policeman interrogating the group about a school break-in. He is hilarious and needs to do more comedic roles. 

5) In this week's reading, I eagerly dug into  an upcoming book by one of my go-to authors. Amy Poeppel has a new novel titled The Sweet Spot coming out in February of 2023. It's a funny, charming, sweet story about a three women who end up caring for a baby who is not theirs. One of the women is Melinda the ex-wife of the father of the baby (who dumped her for a younger woman, successful lifestyle guru  Felicity), one is Lauren, a artist whose works are being sold by Felicity, and the third woman is Olivia, who had an unfortunate interaction with a customer that led to her being fired by Felicity. The setting of Greenwich Village in NYC is another character, and all of the characters are so interesting and well-drawn (my favorite is Lauren's mother-in-law), this one is a perfect happy read. Put this one on pre-order now, it's a great Valentine's gift to yourself or Galentine's gift for your besties.

I hope you have a happy, safe, healthy week. Until next time.

Friday 5ive- October 7, 2022

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly-ish post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Like everyone else last week we were glued to out TV sets watching Hurricane Ian as it headed for south Florida. We have been thinking about everyone who lost so much, it was just devastating.

1) After reading Madeline Martin's fascinating novel, The Librarian Spy, set in WWII Lisbon, Portugal, I felt it necessary to look for a local Portuguese restaurant that makes Pastéis de Nata. I walked by Le Réveil Coffee & Bakery, and ordered a few of the tasty custard-filled breakfast pastries. They were everything I expected after reading (drooling) about them in the book. I will be back.

2)  I completed two virtual bike rides on Conqueror Challenges in the last few weeks. The first one was a long one- 828 miles along the Ring Road in Iceland. It took me 107 days from start to finish on my daily Peloton bike rides, only missing a week or two due to vacation and illness. The second one was a short one, the 125 mile Florida Keys ride, which only took me two weeks. Next up are two England rides.

3)  Speaking of Peloton, I took a hugely entertaining spin class featuring music from the Broadway show Moulin Rouge. Bradley Rose and Sam Yo teamed up to lead the class, which I have taken three times so far. For me, the best classes feature music I can sing along to. The music from that class has been on repeat on my Apple library while I work on my computer. (It's on now as I type and yes, I am singing.)

4)  I started watching Reboot, a sitcom on Hulu. The co-creator of Modern Family Steve Levitan's new project is about the reboot of sitcom from the 1980s. Rachel Bloom  (My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) stars as the new showrunner and leads a brilliant cast consisting of Paul Reiser as the executive producer from the 1980's version who wants back in, and Keegan-Michael Key,  Judy Greer, and Johnny Knoxville as the original cast members who reunite after some tough years. I laugh from beginning to end of each episode, and whenever there is a scene set in the writer's room featuring the original writers from the 1980s version and the new generation of young writers, I laugh even harder. Those scenes are so inappropriate and hilarious. Don't miss this one. 

5) I've tried to be better about reading every night, but sometimes I'm just too tired. I finished three good books in the last few weeks. Carter Bays, co-creator of How I Met Your Mother has written a creative novel titled The Mutual Friend. I bought this one off the Staff Recommends shelf at Bookstore1 in Sarasota, Florida. A group of people living in New York City are interconnected through various relationships, and the book is narrated by a narrator not revealed to the reader until the end. There is a lot here about the dangers of social media and our obsession with the constant presence of our phones. It took me awhile to get into this one with its multiple characters, but once I did I was hooked, and the end will make you smile.

 Moving from the big city to a small town in Texas, I read Bobby Finger's delightful 

The Old Place because it has garnered so many rave reviews. Mary Alice is a teacher forced into retirement who lives for her morning coffee sessions with her neighbor, Ellie. Ellie and Mary Alice have a special connection as they both lost their teenage sons. Mary Alice is determined to make life miserable for Josie, her replacement at school, a young woman from New York City who married the scion of the town's wealthy family. Anyone from a small town will enjoy the setting and relate to the characters living there. The preparations for the big town festival fundraiser had me laughing and nodding my head in recognition. Although billed as a humorous story, there is some sadness here, just like in real life.  

I never miss a book from author Anne Leigh Parrish. Her previous novels  (Our Love Could Light the World, The Amendment, A Winter Night) have dealt with families living in the Finger Lakes region where I'm from, and have contemporary settings. Her latest novel, An Open Door, is an historical novel set in the aftermath of WWII. The main character is Edith, a young woman working at the UN in New York City and married to a man studying to be a lawyer and living in Boston. Edith enjoys her freedom in New York living with her husband's widowed aunt, so her decision to return to her husband in Boston is fraught with complications. She feels stifled with her life as a housewife, and when an opportunity to buy the neighborhood bookstore along with two other people comes along she sees this as a chance to do more with her life. No one writes characters better than Anne Leigh Parrish, and Edith is no exception. Parrish takes the reader into the heart and head of her characters so brilliantly that we relate and understand them, even when they do things with which we disagree. My full review posts here on October 18th. 

Have a safe, healthy week, and don't forget to get your flu shot.