Odds & ends

An assortment of recent thoughts, observations, articles, etc. that I haven't had time to turn into full blog posts or might not be worthy of one, but that I nevertheless wanted to get off my chest: ; )

• Seen on a plaque in a Hallmark store at the mall last weekend: "Great moms get promoted to GRANDMAS." So what does that say about MY mom?? I happen to think she's pretty great too. That one stuck in my craw.
• Number of times I've been asked, by (newer) co-workers & salespeople this month (so far) whether I have children: 5 (that I can think of offhand).
• Number of pages in Raising Expectations, the long-awaited Aug. 26th report of Ontario's Expert Panel on Infertility & Adoption: 229 (!!). (You can download the press release, full report &/or a much shorter executive summary, HERE.)
• Likelihood that any of the recommendations will ever become policy/law anytime soon: ????
• Some of the publications that ran articles about the report (along with pages of stomach-churning comments): The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star and The Ottawa Citizen.
• Headline in Tuesday's Toronto Star: "The new mommy track: Have a kid, win the match." Kim Clijster's comeback win at the U.S. Open has prompted a spate of articles about the "advantage" of motherhood, both on & off the sports field. I appreciate that being a mother doesn't mean that women have to be considered has-beens or second-best. I never believed that before, don't believe it now. But all I can think of when you put it like this is, "Great, something else I'm supposedly disadvantaged at because I'm a childless woman." :p
• Lynn Crosbie recent went on a rant in the Globe & Mail titled "Beasts of prey & oopsy moms," in which she takes the premise of a new Jenna Elfman sitcom, "Accidentally on Purpose" (as well as "Cougar Town" with Courteney Cox) to task:

"a culture so obsessed with babies lately that this year's fall collections will likely feature damp-nursing bras and gigantic, sphagnum-moss-filled underpants. 

"Margaret Atwood's out there promoting her new dystopian nightmare, The Year of the Flood, which features warring mutants in the end of days, and the frank admission that “We're using up the Earth. It's almost gone.” Since it is almost gone, the new baby maniacs seem to be saying, why not fill what remains with plastic, fully loaded diapers? 

"But that's okay, because we will need armies of Madisons, Connors and Jaydens to fill the Terrordomes of the future. Baby insanity is why NBC is airing, again! a decade later!, a version of the film Parenthood , and why Elfman is back, furthering the getting-popular idea that getting pregnant can be, as the show's coy title suggests, a way of being a rad, independent woman and biologically compelled mama."

• In the Toronto news recently: a fatal accident in which a cyclist (who had been drinking & was picked up by the cops earlier in the evening) was killed after an altercation with a car -- driven by the former attorney general of the province, once touted as a possible future premier. Of all the many words written on this subject over the past few weeks, I most appreciated the last two paragraphs of a column by Jim Coyle of The Toronto Star, who wrote:

"Those who've had a multitude of blessings might think their well-being and sunny expectations are the natural order of things. Then something happens.

"It's then we learn the most inescapable of truths. You get what life throws at you. And the worst of it usually comes straight out of the blue."