best friend

Beautiful days - hot sun, red leaves, Toronto at its best. Which is a special joy because my best friend Lynn is visiting for a week from Provence, a place which is always at its best. A treat to share my fine city with her. Here's what my home town looked like last night:

First, my own great news: THE WIRES ARE DOWN! It only took a year to go through the incredibly complicated process, but it's done, and the sky above my garden is clear.

Thank you!

And ... my friend Piers Hemmingsen, a fellow Beatles nut and author of "The Beatles in Canada" sent me a link - "All My Loving" is listed as one of the library's best books on the Beatles. Believe it or not, I didn't know the book was even in the library. Not only that, but when I took a look, two of the four copies were checked out! Two people reading my book as we speak. I know, to J. K. Rowling, two readers would not cause excitement. But to me, yes yes yes.
http://torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com/programming/2016/10/four-fab-facts-about-the-fab-four.html

Lynn and I went to a book launch - my dear friend Kate Trotter's beautiful daughter Kathleen, fitness trainer to the stars and a star herself, has written a book, "Finding Your Fit: a compassionate trainer's guide to making fitness a lifelong habit." It's a charming book full of practical tips. I've known Kathleen since she was a baby - hard to recognize the stunning and poised young woman speaking to the stellar crowd at her launch - Clayton Ruby, Harriet Sacks, Louise Dennys - friends and clients. Brava!
https://www.dundurn.com/books/finding-your-fit
Lynn is now a fitness buff herself, getting up at 5 every morning to follow an on-line yoga course before starting her day. Yikes. This did not happen when we lived together in 1968. She has recently lost 12 kilos and is even more gorgeous and vibrant than ever, this mother of five and grandmother of eight, on her way to deliver a paper on Lydia Davis to a linguistics conference in Savannah. I know, my friends are the most boring people.

My friend and I took Anna and the boys, and Eli's friend Finn, to their favourite sushi restaurant last night. Chaos of the best kind. But chaos.

That is not a green fascinator on my head.

We also went to see the Juilliard String Quartet play Beethoven and Bartok, thanks to Music Toronto in its 45th year - and a better string quartet I couldn't hope to hear. Moving, rich, powerful. Today, going to St. Lawrence Market and the Beach with Anne-Marie and then our old university friends Jessica, Louise and Suzette are coming for dinner - FUN!

And more fun: I received the following cheery note from an agent I sent a query to.
Thank you for your query, which we read with interest.  While we felt that this project has good potential, we have very reluctantly decided to pass.
Interest! Good potential! Not just reluctantly but very reluctantly!! Obviously, best-seller status is just around the corner.

Sigh.

Onward - into this heavenly day, with my best friend of almost fifty years by my side.