Column: Ninety-one books down in 2022 . . . so far, that is

I’ve read 91 books so far this year.

Although I haven’t kept records all my long and enthusiastic reading life, I’m pretty sure I outdid myself in 2022.

A critical mass of events explains my overachievement. In March, I had surgery to replace my right knee. Six weeks of recovery provided ample reading time.

In June, I retired from a 32-year stint as a school librarian. I enjoyed about six weeks of summer vacation, then underwent replacement surgery on my left knee. More reading time.

I began the book list as a librarian. I kept it in the back of my agenda, so if a patron was looking for suggestions (a request sure to make my mind go blank), I could refresh my memory of favorite titles. Also, I always put out a reading list for staff members in June, to provide ideas for summer reading and the book group I organized during the school year.

Now, it’s just an enjoyable habit.

I was going to write a column highlighting the best books I’d read in the summer and fall, since the last time I wrote about what I was reading. But something changed once I left library work. I no longer felt I needed to keep up with what was new and popular. I didn’t have to read children’s and young adult literature anymore.

I could go to my bookshelves and select something I’d purchased years ago, but never had time to peruse, because I’d been busy with “professional reading.”

Which was almost always pleasurable reading as well. But it was reading with a purpose, not “what do I feel like reading right now?”

One of my retirement presents was a gift card to the Twice-Told Tales used bookshop in Brunswick, which is run by the Friends of Curtis Memorial Library. I’d never been there, but it turned out to be well worth the trip. After an hour of pleasant browsing, I left with a stack of books.

A couple of weeks later I was post-surgical and mostly housebound—in August. I thought one of my new-to-me books was just the ticket to foreign adventure that I needed. Susan Hermann Loomis’ “On Rue Tatin” is a memoir of her American family’s move to Normandy and their restoration of an ancient house. Since Loomis is a food writer, there also are recipes.

I thoroughly enjoyed my sojourn in the village of Louviers. What would I read next? I scoured my shelves. Why, Julia Child’s “My Life in France” would be be a perfect follow up. It turned out to be one of the most delightful books ever. Child’s infectious good humor imbued every page, and that was a bonus, as the story of her life and her relationship with her husband, Paul, are deeply fascinating.

How fortunate it was that I also purchased “Provence, 1970” by Luke Barr at Twice-Told Tales. Subtitled “M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste,” the book tells the story of how the three connected in the south of France during a pivotal time in American culture. The author, Fisher’s grandnephew, details the trio’s interactions as well as their part in changing American tastes. The country was moving from a TV dinner mentality to embrace farmers’ markets, ethnic cuisine and vegetarian fare.

Meanwhile, inspired by all this “Frenchness” I decided to return to a series I had started a while back: “Bruno, Chief of Police,” by Martin Walker. I’d only read the first one. My husband, Paul, however, had continued with them, and we had seven books in the series just sitting on the shelf. I would read them all! (And more.)

I’d only done this with two other authors, who are also among my top favorites—Louise Penny and Paul Doiron. In successive summers, I reread the first book in each of their series and then kept on until I’d reached their current offerings.

This kind of marathon reading is a delicious indulgence for the avid reader, especially mystery fans like me.

And “Bruno” is a fun series. He’s a great character, a small-town cop in the Périgord region of southwest France who also happens to be a gourmet cook. Bruno loves to ride his horse and spend time with his basset hound; he keeps chickens and a large kitchen garden. He has a  varied and lively group of friends. Oh, and it’s not just dead bodies that turn up in the quaint stone villages of his jurisdiction—Bruno also gets involved in a considerable amount of international intrigue.

I’ve reached the 2022 entry in the series, but I’m taking a break to read the latest Louise Penny. I’ve also started checking some of my favorite readers’ advisory sites, like IndieBound’s Indie Next List and LibraryReads for, yes, what’s new and popular. When something catches my eye, I reserve it through inter-library loan.

Usually it takes a while for my requests to go through on these just-published books, but the other day I had two waiting for me at Lithgow Public Library. An embarrassment of riches —which may just push me over the line with 100 books read in 2022.

Column: Coming to terms with the way we are now

I stood in the pet food aisle at the supermarket and gazed upon two sparsely stocked shelves. Empty spaces stood where, once, Milk-Bone products had been on display. My heart sank. I needed dog treats, and the darn supply chain boondoggle had struck again.

As my eyes searched feverishly for a random package of Soft & Chewy bites, I thought for the millionth time, “We are not back to normal yet.”

We faced down the worst of the pandemic. Students are back to graduating in person, going to dances and performing plays. Families are gathering. More people are traveling.

But our lives have changed. Life is not the same. We are not the same.

As I scan the shelves, I am wearing a mask. I have been vaccinated and received two boosters. Got my flu shot, too. But I don’t want to get sick. So far, so good, and I want to keep up this record.

Mostly, I mask up in the supermarket. There are just too many people darting around near me. But my husband, Paul, and I eat indoors occasionally. We gravitate toward cavernous places where we can maintain a reasonable distance.

In smaller stores, I’ll usually just carry my mask and put it on as needed. I was in a shop the other day and saw no need for a mask—until a group of five arrived and suddenly it was crowded. 

Even though I’ve relaxed some over the past year, I’m still wary of being in groups inside. My aversion is deeply rooted in my subconscious. I can be watching a TV show, completely relaxed. Then the actors go into a conference room. My body stiffens. They are inches apart from each other. They are sharing unwrapped candy from a dish! “Don’t do it!” I think. Or did I shriek that aloud?

I am especially amused by my reaction when I’m watching a program or film from the 1950s or ‘60s—eons before the pandemic.

One of my earliest memories of that era is taking a bus into the city with my mother to shop. I might have my feet measured and shoes fit by a courteous and attentive clerk. Our purchases would be neatly wrapped and placed in decorative paper bags. If Mom had any questions about sizes or colors, there was an employee (usually several per department) on hand to answer them, as well as to accompany her and wait outside the changing room.

Now, in venues from fish markets to appliance stores, I see signs saying, “Like the rest of the world, we are experiencing staff shortages. Please be patient. Thank you.” I always am (my parents ran a small store—I was raised to respect salespeople), but others are not. Our veterinary practice recently posted an appeal on social media in response to what must have been a verbally abusive incident—again, asking for patience if pets can’t be seen immediately.

In June, I called to see my primary care provider. I was having surgery in August and wanted to clear up a minor issue before then. Her next available date was—August. Luckily, someone else in the practice was able to see me.

It’s not like service in any sector in 2019 was comparable to 1962 (when doctors still made house calls). But we have gone from bad to worse. I once railed against self-service checkouts. Shopping is my job, not packing it up. More importantly, as a proud union member all of my adult life, I saw it as a slap against labor .As more self-service units were installed, fewer people were employed.

Now, I’ll use them if I only have a few items because, usually, fewer registers are open. Lines can be long. Jobs go unfilled.

If Paul is shopping with me, and there is no bagger, he takes over. He’s getting pretty good at it.

Most of the time, I am finding what I need in the supermarket.  I can have a sense of humor about what’s not available, although I almost had a breakdown when I couldn’t find frozen pepper strips. I was planning a stir-fry. I needed those peppers. Don’t do this to me, universe. Oh, there they are.

I managed to remain calm when the evaporated milk supply (needed to make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving) had been ravaged. There was no way I was going to use fat-free, but I managed to find a low-fat tucked in the back of the display. Pie turned out fine.

The cream section had been similarly ransacked that day. There were barely any cartons of any size left, and those were low-fat. What is the purpose of low-fat half and half, I ask you? It defies reason.

But I am simply observing, not complaining. Cranberries were plentiful this year. There were two packages of Soft & Chewy treats left. I am eating out again. Someday I will be able to watch a movie in a theater, and not cringe when two people who haven’t seen each other in years embrace in the middle of a crowded train terminal.

In the meantime, I recognize that I have been through something, that I am not the same. My world is not the same. I do not dwell on it, but I don’t brush it away, either. I simply think: “This is the way we are now.”

Column: Inching toward Christmas, and other seasonal rules

The Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar is one of my favorite holiday traditions. It’s a downloadable electronic experience, set in various interesting locations. Last year it was London, this year it’s Sussex.

In this countdown to Christmas, users click on a number, one through 25, and are treated to an animated video—a celebration of St. Lucia Day, for example, with small girls in procession, singing, wreaths of lights upon their heads. (That year the calendar was set in a Nordic village.) Or it might be an activity, like dressing up a snow person.

The numbers are embedded in a scenic landscape (usually on ornaments), and there’s always a cozy, decorated room to visit in one of the buildings. There, users can learn about the various traditions depicted and the lovely classical music in the background, play games and assemble jigsaw puzzles.

It’s a relaxing way to spend 15 minutes after dinner in the lead-up to Christmas Day. I also enjoy gifting friends with the calendar. But, truly, the best part is that users can’t open an activity until its time arrives. Number One is on Dec. 1. Number 25 is on Christmas.

You can buy the calendar right now. You can look around the scene and visit the sitting room. But there’s no cheating. Click on December 1st all you want. It won’t open.

How refreshing is that, when the American “celebration” of Christmas started before Halloween this year?

I believe in tradition. The Christmas season starts with the first Sunday of Advent, which, conveniently for us, comes right after Thanksgiving. In fact, I discovered that the daily activities on the calendar couldn’t be accessed until Dec. 1 when I went on at the start of Advent and clicked on the ornament numbered “one.” It took me a minute to realize my mistake.

My reaction: “Oh, Jacquie Lawson, you are even more of a stickler than I am!”

I feel so strongly about this subject that, in the past, I would get angry when I walked into a store to buy toothpaste or laundry detergent in early November and saw a display of Christmas candy. Now I’m just resigned to the madness. But I will not succumb. My tree is not decorated, my wreath will not be hung, until November 27th.

I celebrate Christmas from Advent Sunday until Epiphany. As I should. As everybody would, if I ruled the world.

Tradition is my major objection to the early start on the season. But it’s not the only one. I also am a believer in living in the moment, which to me also means living in reality. I check the temperature before I head out the door. It’s not hard. It’s right there on my smart watch. If it’s 32 degrees, as it was this morning, I wear a coat, hat and gloves.

The flip-flops are stashed away until May. I am now wearing pants. If you are in shorts in mid November, I am sneering at you in my head. Sue me.

Now is the time for winter jackets. It is also the time for pumpkins. I ignore the evergreen swags with jaunty red ribbons that taunt me as I make my way into the supermarket. It’s not easy.

Everybody was in such a hurry to get pumpkin spice coffee—in August. Summer. So wrong. You can bet that no pumpkin in any way, shape or form crossed my lips before September 23rd. The autumnal equinox should be observed and a pumpkin spice coffee is a fine way to do it.

Also, decorative maize and jack-o’-lanterns, scarecrows and corn stalks can be displayed after this date.

Mums are good any time that you, personally, feel fall-ish, but I will say if you buy them too early you will also lose them early.

Because, you see, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3)

Peppermint mocha coffee’s time has not yet arrived. Trust me, it tastes better if you wait until the 27th.

It’s called delayed gratification, and it’s what grown-ups do.

Before Election Day, I might have made a snarky remark now and then that apparently there are no grown-ups left in America, but the midterms proved me wrong. Now I’m wondering if there are enough of us to stop the Christmas in October craziness.

My final appeal for sanity is in defense of Thanksgiving, which has become the planet Pluto of holidays. I love Thanksgiving. It’s all about food and cooking and baking (my favorite things) and does not involve presents. Why can’t we just focus on pumpkins and stuffing and family gatherings and (groan) football for the month between Halloween and Thanksgiving? Then we can finally heave ourselves with abandon into Christmas.

Oh, why do I even try? I have accepted that I am a lone voice in the wilderness. I celebrate my holiday my way, and that’s all that counts.

Still, it isn’t easy. I downloaded the Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar so I could make sure my details here were correct. Usually I wouldn’t do that until you-know-when. I entered the scene, and it was so very festive. I sighed with delight.

But once I’d fact-checked, I shut it right down. December 1st will be here soon enough. Isn’t it lovely I have something to look forward to?

Column: Good habits are, well, positively addictive

I take a walk every day. Over time, when others have become aware that I do this, they have often said they wish they could do the same thing.

My answer is always the same. “Once you start, you won’t be able to stop. It becomes really easy.”

The power of habit is amazing. I’ve never been an athlete of any sort. I never craved physical exertion like some people do. I’ve enjoyed swimming and ice skating since I was a child, but as pleasurable ways to pass the time. Kayaking, nordic skiing and hiking (hills, not mountains) were experienced in a similarly desultory manner.

But as late middle age approached, I felt I should be exercising daily, in a deliberate way. So I started walking for half an hour, which at my speed was about two miles. On the weekends, I’d walk with my husband, Paul. On the weekdays, I’d walk on my lunch break or after dinner. When the weather was bad, we’d walk at the YMCA.

I didn’t always feel like walking, but I found, after a couple of months, that when the clock told me it was time, I got up almost automatically and headed out the door. I made sure I’d planned for alternative arrangements if I was going to be diverted from my usual schedule. Once the walking habit was formed, I didn’t have to think about whether or not I was going.

I was a walking robot.

Habit has also helped me with my writing. Julia Cameron, in her book, “The Artists’ Way,” encourages the practice of “morning pages.” Get up, maybe make a cup of coffee, and write, without stopping or editing, about three pages. Let it flow. The idea is to stimulate creativity, and get out your thoughts so later in the day you can focus on more directed work.

Writing every day is a good thing for writers to do. It exercises those mental muscles.

Life intervened, and I was too busy in the early morning to write. Last year, I decided I wanted to re-establish the practice. I was getting up at 4 a.m. and writing for half an hour. I formed the habit, but then I had surgery. Complications put me into critical care for a week. Although I did keep up my writing in the hospital, all I was capable of were short notations in a small notebook. Morning pages weren’t an option during my month-long recovery, either.

I didn’t push myself to get back to it because soon I was undergoing two total knee replacements, one in March and one in August. But after the second one, I just naturally started writing morning pages again. I had to do exercises for my knee, then sit and apply ice for half an hour. It was the perfect time for scribbling.

I was able to do this because I’d retired from my day job as a school librarian. I’d been an educator for 32 years, and thought about habit and consistency a lot during that time. It is so important for children to develop healthy routines.

There’s a lot of talk these days about “executive functioning” abilities, and how so many students need to have them strengthened. In very simplistic terms, they need direct instruction in how to organize their binders.

So many children have chaotic lives, without any kind of structure or routine. It may sound hopelessly “1955" to envision students who sit at a table to eat supper and then go to their own desk to complete their homework. The meal, the dining table and the desk are not givens, as they were in my own childhood home.

But imagine how successful these youngsters could be if they had more structure in their lives. Luckily, good habits can be taught and learned.

I’m here to say if I can do it, anyone can. I haven’t turned myself into an Olympic athlete. I’m still just walking for 30 minutes. But I continue to reap the benefits.

After my first knee surgery, (on my right knee), I tried to resume my walks as soon as possible, starting with 10-minute stints. But there was a problem. My left knee was arthritic too. Now it was bearing most of my weight. My walks became ever more painful. I continued—my habit pushing me—but it was a challenge.

The left knee fix was a totally different story. I started very short walks less than two weeks after surgery. Soon I was up to 15 minutes every morning, then 20. I added a second 20 minute jaunt in the afternoon. By the time I began outpatient physical therapy in week three, I was almost walking normally. My therapist was amazed. He said that the people who recover the quickest from knee replacement are those who walk.

Now I’m almost back to my pre-surgery speed.

I had been walking with nordic poles for support, but I was proud to ditch them. Then Paul sent me an article that explained how healthy it is to walk with poles.

I went back to using them and guess what happened? I can’t leave home without them. It’s a habit.

Column: Archaeology, anthropology, and Mary Tyler Moore

There’s a secret reason there’s a big wooden “L” on top of the bookshelf near my desk. Obviously, it represents my first name. But when I saw it at Target a few years ago, I was immediately transported back to my adolescence.

Mary Richards, the lead character in the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-1977), had a big wooden “M” on the wall of her enviable Minneapolis apartment. I adored the show, and wanted my own letter, not to mention a cute and extensive wardrobe, a flat with French windows leading to a balcony and a job as an assistant producer of a TV news show.

I was 14. A girl’s got to dream.

Now, thanks to the miracles of modern media, I am binge-watching MTM. I’m both reliving my past and conducting anthropological and archeological studies.

My husband, Paul, and I like to, as we put it, “have a sitcom going.” It seems healthy to laugh regularly. One of our recent selections was “MASH.” Though I’d watched that show as a kid, it did not prepare me for the jolt of recognition I got from the very first episode of MTM. Mary’s apartment included a record player, a tiny portable TV and a push-button phone. Oh, the horrors of not getting to the phone on time when it was ringing. We didn’t even have home answering machines in those days.

Mary’s outfits—lots of patterns, bright colors and miniskirts—were designer versions of what my friends and I wore at the time. I had recently been working on some fiction set around 1970, and had been looking online at period sewing patterns. Of course Mary Richards had “the look” of 1970. She was a clothes horse!

In season two, though, Mary no longer wore miniskirts. They were still in style, and other characters wore them. But she adopted a more professional look of suits and dresses. Suddenly, I found myself in the role of amateur anthropologist. What was going on here?

When the show begins, Mary has come to the big city after a romantic breakup. She seems to have a secretarial background, and while her new position as assistant producer sounds important, she’s still typing (on a manual machine).

Mary and her upstairs neighbor, Rhoda Morgenstern, lament the fact that they are 30 and unmarried. Life is passing them by. Marriage had been a life goal for them.

But then Mary gets a proposal—and turns it down. She asks her boss, Lou Grant, for more challenging assignments. A corner has been turned—Mary is more satisfied with her life as a “career woman.”

And as time goes on, super-nice Mary, who has a hard time saying no or setting boundaries, gets ever more assertive.

This evolution got me thinking. I would have been 16 years younger than Mary and Rhoda—almost a generation. I grew up thinking I’d want to get married—after I graduated college. Most of my friends were college-bound. In fact, I remember wondering why a friend who was in the top ten of our class was going to nursing school. Why didn’t she want to be a doctor?

I know that sounds judgmental, but it proves my point—the fictional character of Mary Richards was reflecting some major changes in society. The show reaffirmed my sense of independence.

The women’s liberation movement, which had started in the early 1960s, was still well under way in the early 70s. The men of the WJM newsroom could be sexist, particularly the oafish anchor Ted Baxter. (Once, while introducing Mary on the air, he refers to her attractive legs.) When Mary has to fire the sportscaster, she invites him to lunch and he starts pawing at her.

It was still the bad old days. When I was in college, I attended an extracurricular “assertiveness training” class, so I, too, could learn to say no.

While I’ve been rediscovering the cultural mores of the 1970s, I have been digging into the artifacts. What a colorful era it was. Orange was big. In season three, Paul and I fell into a routine of noting when the characters were wearing orange, and it seemed somebody was in every episode. An orange pantsuit is a sight to behold, believe me.

Interestingly, in season four there seemed initially to be a change to yellow. Were the ubiquitous “harvest gold” kitchen appliances about to burst onto the scene? But orange hadn’t completely gone out of style, it turns out. Some characters were still in minis, and Mary wore pantsuits to work sometimes. (This after an earlier episode in which Lou says he doesn’t want to see a woman in slacks in the office.)

I don’t think I could define the 2020s by using a color palette, and there certainly is no uniformity in dress. We’re a fractured nation, in more ways than one. Sometimes it’s hard to find a single friend who has watched the same show as you, even if it was a big hit on Netflix.

Is it possible to have too many options? It can be confusing, especially for young people. But then I watch an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and remember being 14, when I saw that the possibilities were endless. Which is why, whenever I glimpse my big wooden “L,” I smile.

Column: Turning to the Tao when an elderly dog loses her appetite

Martha didn’t want to eat breakfast.

Our lab-pit bull mix, almost 14 years old, had always enthusiastically  chowed down her meals. She usually jumped up on her hind legs as my husband, Paul, put down her food bowl. On this particular morning in July, though, she hesitated. She hemmed and hawed. Finally, she ate.

Since her behavior was otherwise normal, and she wanted her usual snacks, we didn’t worry. There are also four cats in the household, three of them elderly, two with advanced kidney and thyroid disease. We describe ourselves as running a “kitty hospice and senior dog day care center.” On any given day, somebody is off their feed.

Martha ate her lunch and supper with her usual gusto. But she remained slow about breakfast the next day. We chalked it up to old age.

We soon went on vacation, to our usual rental on the coast. Martha outright refused breakfast on our first full day there. Though she’s been going to the cottage since she was eight months old, I’d noticed that it had been harder  for her to transition the last couple of years. The same thing had happened with her late brother Aquinnah, in his final years. When dogs’ senses dim they start to want security and familiar surroundings.

I stood in the kitchen with Martha and thought. I was convinced that a stress-free vacation was probably not in the cards for me. There were the fragile cats, the elderly dog—heck, Paul and I were over 65 ourselves. Anything could go wrong.

So I did the only thing I could think of to encourage Martha to eat her breakfast. I put a dab of canned food on her kibble.

Now, I knew this was the highway to hell. Normally, Martha only gets wet food in her Kong (a hollow rubber toy) as a treat after breakfast and dinner. Martha is a dog who likes habit and routine. Once she had a “dibby-dab” of canned food on her dry food, she would always have to have a dibby-dab on her dry food. Morning, noon and night. For the rest of her life.

Martha ate her breakfast. My vacation was saved.

The dibby-dab technique worked for several weeks, although Martha was definitely not as excited about breakfast as she once had been. Her behavior at the other meals was entirely normal. We cut back on her breakfast rations, and that encouraged her to clean her plate. It seemed like a stopgap solution, but it was the best we could do.

At this point, I had other things on my mind. I was scheduled for a second full knee replacement at the beginning of August. My right knee had undergone the surgery in March, and I was anxious to have my stiff and painful left knee taken care of as soon as possible.

But there was a delay, and I couldn’t have the procedure until the middle of the month. When it was finally completed, I was homebound for two weeks and taking pain medication. I was sleeping late—which for me was 7:30 a.m.

This intensive recovery period did give me time to read and to think. I revisited one of my favorite books, “The Tao of Inner Peace,” by Diane Dreher. The author takes lessons from the ancient book of wisdom, the “Tao Te Ching” and applies them to modern life. When faced with “hostile cycles,” for example, it is helpful to observe from afar, and discern the patterns of the disruption.

What was going on with Martha? Hmm. Martha’s life had been disrupted, and that was probably the root of her breakfast issues. Not only had I had surgery, I’d retired from my day job at the end of June. Though Paul kept taking her out and feeding her first thing in the morning, my schedule had changed. I was sleeping later since I retired—and after the surgery, I had really changed things up.

Just as I was mulling this over, Paul came by and said, “Maybe she’s tired in the morning. She sleeps more deeply now.” I agreed. Paul has risen at 4 a.m. for years and taken the dogs out. The cats, then the dogs, ate after that. I’d be up by 5 back then, because I had to be at work at 7. But there was no reason now to get a 13-year-old dog up at 4 a.m. And I needed to get back on a schedule.

We devised a plan. Paul would get up at his usual time and feed the cats. But he wouldn’t take Martha out until 5. Then we’d give her a break, and I would get up and feed her at 5:30.

From day one, it worked. Within a couple of weeks, she was back to her usual half cup of dry food at breakfast. Of course, it must now be topped with a dibby-dab, but I knew that going in.

I, meanwhile, recognize the irony that I am showered and dressed every day by 6:45, as I would be if I were still working.

But, believe me, that’s a tiny price to pay for a little peace and harmony at the kitty hospice and senior dog day care center.