My friend Peter writes about wrapping up his pants business:

I was quite grateful to our designer Cecilia for not mentioning early on that pants are pretty complex pieces of apparel with plenty of complications built in, and lots of variety in how they would be used. In other words, all bodies are different. (Sidebar: Let’s face it, legs are weird once you start thinking about them.)

I was one whose body was different enough to not have a pair of Zephyr pants that suited, so I know the truth of this (the curse of the Rukavina men: short of leg, talk of torso).

There’s a lot that rings true in Peter’s postmortem when I think about my own experience of running a physical goods shop for the last month.

There’s now an electric vehicle charger at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which would have been a big help to use when Catherine was regularly receiving treatment there.

I’m hopeful that a charger will also be installed at the PEI Palliative Care Centre, a place where, I can attest from personal experience, the last thing you want to be worrying about is whether your car’s battery has enough juice to get you home.

Jessica Spengler on Christmas lights and neighbours:

When the sun goes down, I turn our Christmas lights on for us because they make our flat feel cozy. But I also turn them on for everyone else on the street, so when our neighbors look out their windows, they see something bright and pretty in the cold night. And when I look out my window and see the twinkling lights and candles and Christmas trees of our neighbors, I feel like they’re partially for us, too. We’re sending out little signals to say we’re here, and we know you’re there, and while we may all still be isolated and afraid, we see each other, and we care.

Everything I know about merchandising, including what the word itself means (“the activity of promoting the sale of goods, especially by their presentation in retail outlets”), I learned at Canadian Tire as a teenager. While my primary role there was selling Commodore VIC-20 computers, I received all the training that any floor staffer would, so I learned all about how to put English-language labels facing front, making sure there was always the appearance of products being fully in stock, and that Canadian Tire sells most of the Armour All in Canada.

All of which made me appreciate this floor display at The Bookmark even more.

After being out of stock for a week, Using Her Marbles is back in stock at The Bookmark.

From Black Ink, Fighting the Virus at Central Michigan Prison:

As the unrest inside Michigan prisons continues, how might we make the most of these shared sentiments between what are usually antagonistic groups? The Michigan guards union is holding pickets and calling for the resignation of Director Washington. And some guards are not silent about their sympathies with prisoners. In April, a CO at Cotton Correctional put it plainly, writing “I get it. [Prisoners are] panicking too. While prisoners can still call their families, visits have been suspended. Sometimes we look at each other and we can both tell what the other is thinking: I don’t know what to do.”

The Love & Sex section of The Guardian is an endless source of fascinations, none more so than the “How we stay together” column. Here’s a good example.

In July, Oliver and I inaugurated “Saturday Movie Night” at 100 Prince Street. We alternate movie picks each week. Except that choosing is Oliver’s Kryptonite, so on his choosing-week he provides me with guidelines and I do the actual choosing. I’m also subject to guidelines during my week, although the adherence is allowed to be slightly less rigorous.

Up until October there was an overarching requirement that I pick a movie made during Oliver’s teenage years on his week, and a movie made during my teenage tears for mine.

More recently the guidelines have been more thematic: “Hawaii” (From Here to Eternity), U.S. politics (Bulworth). The best thing about living under this regime is that as long as I meet the guidelines, it’s free reign (admittedly The Goodbye Girl is not strictly, or really at all, a Hanukkah movie, but Richard Dreyfus was raised Jewish, and I just love that film).

Along the way we’ve watched some important movies in the Warren Beatty canon, some classic movies, and some remarkably racist movies made in my teenage years.

I’m particularly proud of myself for finding matches for the weeks when the themes were “Google’s Anniversary” and “The Mexican Revolution.”

Oliver has scheduled a Movie Marathon for us for the holidays; I will put my training to good use.

Here are the 20 Saturday picks we’ve watched so far:

• 2020-07-18: Yesterday
• 2020-08-01: Raiders of the Lost Ark
• 2020-08-08: The In-Laws
• 2020-08-15: Carrie Pilby
• 2020-08-22: Volunteers
• 2020-08-29: The Best Offer
• 2020-09-05: Peggy Sue Got Married
• 2020-09-12: A Star is Born (2018)
• 2020-09-19: Heaven Can Wait
• 2020-09-26: The Intern
• 2020-10-03: The Constant Gardener
• 2020-10-10: The Big Chill
• 2020-10-17: Okja
• 2020-10-24: Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
• 2020-10-31: Bulworth
• 2020-11-07: The Wipers Times
• 2020-11-14: Starting Pancho Villa as Himself
• 2020-11-21: Dan in Real Life
• 2020-11-29: From Here to Eternity
• 2020-12-12: The Goodbye Girl

Although I’m a spendthrift in almost all regards, I have allowed us the luxury of renting movies digitally once a week: we’re very close to being able to find any movie ever made these days, online, between Disney+, Apple TV, YouTube and Netflix. 

Potato pancakes are the only recipe passed through the patrilineal line in our family, from my father’s father to my father to me.

The general shape of the Rukavina latke tradition involves a meat grinder (later a blender) to grind up raw potatoes, to which egg, flour and salt are added, and the resulting soupy mixture fried in oil.

Today I decided to turn my back on a century of family culinary tradition and use this renegade latke recipe from the Times as a guide.

I took shortcuts: I parbaked the potatoes in the microwave for 7 minutes, and I reduced the “resting” phase in the fridge down to 20 minutes. Otherwise I followed along, and the result was at least partially satisfying, more a fishless cousin to fishcakes than anything resembling the latkes of my youth. But they were crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, as promised in the Times article that describes them. Good enough that I’m inclined to try following the recipe chapter and verse next time.

Happy Hanukkah!