If 80 is the new 40...

...then what's the big deal about turning 40?

My husband is turning twoscore this week. I have another five months to go. I'm in no panic.

Soon after one of our friends turned forty he brought home Frances. Sleek, sexy and racy, the Italian beauty so enraged our friend's wife that she cut off her own hair. Despite the fact that she looks adorable with new do, her husband voiced his dismay and then said not another word on the subject. Turning the old Samson and Delilah myth on its head obviously had no effect on hubby.

Whether it mainfests itself in an affair or in the purchase of a shiny red Ferrari (as was the case above), we all of us at one time or another experience a mid-life crisis. With forty fast approaching, my husband decided to make a bold move—leave a job in which he felt unfulfilled to look for something better. It only took six months to find it, not to say the wait was easy. Packing up and selling one's home, and moving clear across the ocean in an effort to build a new and better life, is hardly a crisis. Certainly not if it works, which it has done.

Happy birthday, Johnny! May all your wishes come true.

Catherine the Great as tragic romantic figure

Catherine the Great (1729-1796), Empress of Russia (1762-1796), is well-known for her political prowess, military strategy, dedication to the education of girls, appreciation of the arts including philosophy...the list is without end. Last night we took in the latest exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Catherine the Great: Art for Empire, Masterpieces from the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.

Many things sparked my interest but none more so than an excerpt from her journal shortly after her marriage at the tender age of 14 to Peter III of Russia. She realized right away that her husband did not love her and in fact showed no interest in her at all. In her journal she exhorts herself to waste no time or energy or heartsickness in attempting the impossible; in short, she decides to distance herself emotionally from the man. One wonders if all the energy she poured into her studies—the Russian language, art, history, philosophy, political strategy—which contributed to her own and Russia's rise in power, stemmed, at least initially, from an unsuccessful marriage.

Not to say she pined away. Catherine the Great is reputed to have taken dozens of lovers.