I am so sorry, Kelly Bishop, to include your glorious name in the same sentence as voles. The two are not related; let me assure you.

If you are as big a fan of Gilmore Girls as I am, you know Kelly Bishop! She played Emily Gilmore on the series. She also played Baby’s mom on Dirty Dancing, another one of my favs. I’ve just finished her book – The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir. In it, she tells her life story. I had delayed consuming this book until I was able to get my hands on the audiobook version because she is the one reading it!

Now you may remember that I was so anti-audiobook. Mostly from the deep scarring I endured from being forced to listen to the English Patient audiobook on a road trip where I sushed every time I tried to talk. I hadn’t tried another until I listened to Michael J. Fox’s book last fall and loved it!

From that enjoyable experience, I decided that maybe listening to an author read their life story was the one time I should consume a book as audio.

I am so glad I waited to hear Kelly Bishop’s story in her own voice. It didn’t feel like she was reading. It felt like she was submerged in the hot tub right beside me, telling me her life story (soaking in a hot tub is the best time to listen to an audiobook because there are no distractions!).

From the early days with her mother, father, and brother, to discovering ballet, and performing on Broadway, to landing roles in major movie and tv roles, and every romance along the way. I never thought I’d be Googling for video footage of a 1975 performance of A Chorus Line for which she won a Tony! Or learning that Kelly wasn’t even her given name! Wait until you hear what prompted her to change it!

It was really inspiring to hear her talk about times in her life when she wished for something specific to happen. And then, so many times, it happened!

For some reason, Kelly Bishop reminds me of my Grandma Stock. Not her dance, performing, ballet, but I think it is just in the way she properly pronounces words maybe? And that I enjoyed her in a grandmother role on TV? Not sure, but it made it extra enjoyable.

I carried this experience to the next audiobook I picked for my hot tub time – The Time of the Life by Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa Niemi. So far, the experience does not live up to the experience of Kelly Bishop’s audiobook. I’m only a chapter in, and I’m really enjoying learning about Patrick Swayze’s early life experiences and how he quickly fell in love with Lisa and got married young. I like hearing his voice, especially since he is no longer alive. He recorded the audiobook when he was already well into his battle with pancreatic cancer, and you can hear it in his voice. But he is clearly reading it, and often with no discernible connection to the words, reading in the same repetitive cadence, regardless of the content. I’ll forgive that, though, because he was fighting another battle, and I’ll just focus on how lucky we are that he preserved his life story to share with all of us.

I really love reading (or hearing, apparently!) books that are people’s life stories. There is no need for them to be famous people, though. I don’t know if I’ve met a person yet whose story I wouldn’t enjoy hearing!

Voles

And that brings us to voles. We’ve always had voles living under the snow and under our house in the crawl space. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us.

But this year, their population is high, and they’ve breached our understood agreement.

We’ve had a vole in the house.

I think he was surprised to find himself here. We still don’t have baseboards in the living room. They were removed by a previous homeowner. We’ve been debating (for years and years) what we are going to do with the old douglas fir floor in the living room and if we refinish it, cover it, or rip it out and replace it, and until we do one of those, it is baseboard-less. And that is how the vole found himself in our house. He tunnelled through the insulation under the floor, I imagine, and came out in the gap between the floor and the wall.

If you have a vole in your house, you’ll know. They make a crunchy noise that is SO LOUD! Which is how I know they are also living in my office wall.

The vole was in our house 3 times. Maybe 4. On the fourth, he strayed too far from his portal and got lost.

I didn’t really enjoy him running around my office. Well… running …. they aren’t that fast. He went around my legs a couple times, looked in my office closet, went behind the door – like he was searching for how to get back out. (I don’t think they can see well?)

I begged Hank to follow his instincts. He’s killed a few voles before. With zero warning or lead-up, he is suddenly flying through the air and pouncing on them along the road side or a couple of times in our yard.

But in the house, he didn’t seem full of instincts. He heard the vole. Saw the vole. But ignored the vole. Maybe from years of being told to leave our cat alone?

Jeff added a new loop to his trapline, adding 3 traps inside. But the vole dodged them all.

I begged some more. Please Hank. You can do this.

Eventually it was quiet so I assumed he found his portal and I put Hank outside (he likes to sun himself in his outdoor kennel run for most of the day).

I like sunning myself too, or at least my left elbow. I work on the covered front porch most afternoons for the summer. When I grabbed my laptop and a drink and headed out towards the porch, there it was. The vole was right beside his portal. On his back. Legs in in the air. Front teeth exposed. Still.

Dead? Stunned? Sleeping?

I took his photo (of course) and then nudged it a bit. He was either a really good actor, or deceased. I have to guess that Hank pounced on him. YES! Atta boy Hank! Sorry vole, but you broke our contract!

I sent him to a better place (okay, the landfill, sealed in a ziplock, in case he woke up after I disposed of him).

Now what to do with the voles in my wall? I hear them making their crunchy noises and I don’t like it. The trapline hasn’t had many hits, nor has the “safer” poison placed in the crawl space too (don’t want to kill anything else). The crawl space is gravel with a skirting around the bottom of the house. No way to seal that, especially with the ventilation doors open, but they can just go right under the skirting.

Anyway, enough about the voles.

Gertie’s

I went to the early show with our friends Alex, Kyle, and his mother Bunny last night. A new entertainment company landed the contract to put on the entertainment for the next 3 years. That company is co-owned by a former Gertie singer, who has reclaimed her role as Gertie. It was her night off, though, so we enjoyed the swing Gertie’s show.

Unfortunately, I think the show has taken many steps back. It’s old again, and terribly boring. The songs were plentiful, but all old and dull. The costumes weren’t as beautiful. The dancing not as sexy. Some of the dances felt like they went on too long. I missed there not being a male role in the early show anymore. But maybe it is more enjoyable for its target audience of the tourists, especially the demographic that stays at the Westmark from the cruise ships. I can’t imagine we’re the target audience, just a group of friends who lives here and can go any time we want. (We did take the front center seat, since no one else had!) I heard great praise for the new set backdrops, created locally, including parts crafted by one of the dancers. They are beautiful! But I just didn’t get why they were there and how they related to the show, other than it was supposed to be spring? I missed the old-time Dawson photographic panels the last producers used.

But regardless, it is live entertainment, and live entertainment is always appreciated. I will have to return another night to see what the 10pm and midnight shows hold! I haven’t heard Amy sing as Gertie this year yet, and I haven’t seen who is playing the male role.

Oh! And before I forget!

Alex was selected to go on stage to perform the cancan!

And I took a video of it! He’s a natural!!

Jeff is off on his own adventure, fishing with his brother in NW Ontario. I’m jealous. I loved visiting northern Ontario again last year and I look forward to doing that drive again in a couple years (I hope!).