Dear site Visitor,
We hope you and your family are doing well during these surreal times. Usually, we see all these things that are happening around us only in the movies. Unfortunately, now we are the movie.
Walking ‘Fermo-the-Scottie’ nightly, we look at the other people walking around the neighbourhood and we wonder. Are they as worried about COVID contamination as we are? No one is wearing a mask and we feel very relieved when they cross to the other side of the street as we approach one another.
Further along the walk, the same screenplay unfolds, the same apprehensions, the same anxieties and the same considerations. Common fears that are not being ignored.
These fears are the reality of today, the new normal. We are cast members in this movie as we watch the daily news report updating the numbers of COVID cases and death rates. This has to be an episode of the Twilight Zone. This can’t be real but the nightly news states that it is.
We’re tiring of the same news, repeated day after day. The danger is acknowledged, the risk affirmed but a la Saul Alinsky‘s 9-day theory, the tedium’s setting in. Non-stop updates, mask regulations, testing and distancing, which world location is outpacing which, as if it were an Olympic competition. You win, you’re dead. The jokes and cartoons border on the morbid. Can imminent and premature death really be humorous?
Woe for the good old days…remember them, only months ago? Our masthead photo taken just last fall…motorcycling near Stouffville, Ontario…a mooving memory. Not a care in the world, enjoying the pastoral beauty of southern Ontario. Not now. Ride now but don’t stop…the damn coronavirus might latch on to you wherever you stop.
Publishing a newsletter in these times is difficult. People want to read uplifting things. Well, we’ll give it our best and try to moove you to a more positive place, to a happier place but still working toward our goal, to be informative as well as entertaining.
Authors & Books
We read and write a lot. We are associated with a number of published authors. We are connected with Book Club representatives and book club members. Visit the BOOKz section of our website: meet our authors, learn how to obtain their books and read their advice to writers. Although we tout the Internet as an endless source of information, books are the next best thing to more learning and great escapism without the necessity of electronic/digital facility.
Our Canadian and American published authors: Lucy BLACK, Cheryl BRISTOW, Terry FALLIS, Ginger KUENZEL, Howard PELL, Richard PYVES and Sheila TUCKER write humour, memoirs, and historical books, available in print and ebook form.
ABCr Project
We need your help with a new project. The project is to develop a large association of authors, book clubs and readers aiming to influence booksellers, book distributors, book publishers and libraries to give better consideration to the readers with regard to accessibility and pricing.
We need you to increase our numbers. Please send us a “YES” email in support of the project. Give our project your support so we can affect some changes to the book industry for the benefit of everyone. We can do it with your help.
Send a “YES” email to ABCr project
COOKz
Cabin fever? Too much TV? So off to the kitchen. Pineapple upside-down cake, homemade pasta, tagliatelle, ravioli, and seafood too [Our seafood salad really is outstanding.] Garlic bread-crumbed mussels with white wine…we’re everywhere in the kitchen, experimenting, tasting, and testing. Our baklava was beyond yummy. Type “Recipes” in the Search box to see some of our calorie-laden treasures, scrumptiousness you can make.
PANDEMIC
Many site visitors are doing a great variety of things for which they have now find time. Tell us what you’re doing. What have you done during this forced ‘stay-at-home’ time? Learned to paint? Play the ukulele? Baked a pie? Planted a herb garden? Read a surprisingly good book? What’s its title? Send us your story. Maybe even include some photos? We’ll publish for others to learn from and to enjoy. We’re in this pandemic together. Let’s help beat it with mutual support and encouragement. Let’s help each other.
Stay safe, stay distanced, stay healthy.
Best,
Richard
www.szpin.ca
zippyonego@gmail.com
