Letter from Joy
April 18, 2025
Hi, everyone,
Here’s wishing everyone a Happy Passover and Easter.
Well, we’re back in Toronto until next season, and the weather is as expected for April - a real mixed bag. One day it’s freezing, the next sunny and almost warm, then back to freezing, then warm and rainy… well, you get the picture. My mother always used to say - and I probably remind you of this every April - “Don’t change a thread until April is dead!” So, I don’t start moving things around in my closet till the first of May. And even then, the weather can be unpredictable, unlike the last several months in Palm Beach, where the temperature rarely fell below 80 sunny degrees Fahrenheit (about 26 Celsius). In fact, it was unseasonably hot this past March and April, and so humid you couldn’t even sit outside, more like July and August. I’d come home from golfing - about three times a week - soaking wet. And maybe it was the heat, but my golf game has been terrific. I’m hitting the ball a good thirty yards farther than I ever have, which I have to confess makes the game a lot more fun, and although I’m still making enough mistakes - such as landing in a sand trap beside the green rather than on it - to keep from scoring great, my game has definitely improved. Of course, there’s no way of knowing how long this will last, but I’m hopeful.
Now that we’re back home, I’ve been trying to catch up on things that need to be done - getting organized, paying bills, buying my daughter Shannon a birthday gift, calling my friends to let them know I’m back, going to various appointments. Unfortunately, I was hit with a nasty little 24-hour stomach bug, which slowed me down a little, but I seem to be on the mend now. So, I’m planning to get down to work shortly on an idea I’ve been playing around with. Actually, I have a few ideas, and I was hoping there might be a way to combine them, but I think they’re just too different. So, with any luck, the result will be two novels, not just one. Anyway, very early stages, so not a lot to talk about yet. I’m reading a novel titled HOT AIR by Marcy Dermansky, and so far, so good. It’s different and clever and mercifully short. So much entertainment these days seems to go on way too long. We watched ‘Anora,’ which won all those Oscars recently, and while I found it interesting and enjoyable, if a little schizoid, I also thought a good forty-five minutes of it could have been left on the cutting room floor.
As for TV, I finally got around to watching The White Lotus, and thought it was terrific, even if pretty much all of the characters were pretty awful human beings. But the story was always fascinating, the acting uniformly excellent, and I was completely caught off guard by the final episode. I love when I’m surprised like that. I honestly didn’t see most of what transpired coming. (I never actually try to figure things out but sometimes it’s hard not to.) I’ve also started watching the British drama, ‘Adolescence.’ It’s only four episodes and my daughter Annie says it’s gut-wrenching, especially the last one. I’ve seen one episode so far and thus far, it’s very good, if not the most pleasant way to spend an hour. It’s a little hard to watch, but ultimately, I hope, worth it. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has concluded another season - one of its juiciest. There are now no actual housewives on the show, the still-existing marriages seemingly kaput. Already looking forward to next season.
And that’s about it for now. Here’s to enjoying the rest of April and looking forward to seeing those May flowers. Stay safe and healthy. And above all, be kind.
Warmly,
Joy