Odds & ends

• On yesterday's U.S. presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C.:  
• So happy to watch -- and so relieved that everything came off without a hitch!  (I got up late, got watching TV and wound up staying in my pajamas, unshowered, until after 1 p.m...!)  I know my scale would beg to differ (lol) but it felt like a huge weight coming off my shoulders...!  
• I cried as Justice Sonia Sotomayor swore in Vice-President Kamala Harris. I wish Geraldine Ferraro could have seen this day.  I was 23 years old when she became the first woman nominated for that post (alongside Walter Mondale in 1984);  it's taken nearly 40 years (!!!) for a woman to actually make it to the second-highest office in the land. (Just think how awesome it will feel the day Madam President is finally sworn in...!) 
• I cried again when I saw a friend's photo on Facebook & Instagram of her young daughter, watching as Harris took the oath of office. I wish my daughter had been here to see this day too. 
• The first post I saw in my Facebook feed yesterday morning was one of my American MAGA relatives posting "It's a sad day for America." I promptly put that person on snooze for 30 days (and am considering unfollowing altogether...). 
• I was happy to watch the first edition of what's promised to be a regular, daily press briefing under the new administration, with press secretary Jen Psaki. I like her, and I am grateful for the change of tone -- a real, live, proper, serious press conference, minus the snark and disdain and overall lack of respect for the press we've been subjected to for the past four years. 
• HOWEVER, that said... I noticed she used the phrase "as a mom" no less than two or three times in the first 20 minutes. Sigh... 
• On the aging parents front: 
• When I talked to my parents on Sunday, I learned my 81-year-old dad had slipped & fallen on some ice on Friday, while scraping fresh snow off the driveway. He had to CRAWL into the garage & managed to pull himself up on something in there. No bruising, but he was very sore... and the pain increased over the following days. 
• My sister called me last night to say he FINALLY managed to get in to see a doctor that day (hard to do, with current COVID-19 restrictions...). He sent dad for an X-ray. Turns out he has two cracked ribs. :(  Not much they can do about it. He gave Dad some painkillers and told them it will take about a month to fully heal. :( 
• My dad is the glue that holds things together there these days... my mother, who just turned 80, has mobility issues and is easily distracted (among other things), and so he does all the cooking, most of the grocery shopping & errands, etc.  
• My sister says the buzz is that the provincial government there may be lifting some of the COVID-19 restrictions this weekend, which would allow her to visit them and do some things around the house (including cooking some meals she can leave with them for reheating). If so, she will head out there this weekend to do what she can (and she may just go, even if the restrictions aren't officially lifted).  One of Mom & Dad's neighbours has brought over dinner a couple of times this week, which is very kind of her, but obviously we can't expect her to do that forever. :( 
• It could have been a whole lot worse... but it still sucks.  And it sucks to be living so far away at a time like this, even without the complicating factor of a pandemic. :(  
• According to this vaccine calculator, dh & I won't be getting vaccinated until late June/early September (using current calculations, anyway). That means I won't be getting home to see my parents & sister this summer either, for the second year in a row. :(  I'm still hoping for next Christmas, though...! 
• It's been dark, grey, dreary and increasingly cold outside... I feel my usual post-Christmas/birthday/inauguration funk setting in -- with the additional factor of COVID-19 this year...! :(  
• We're a week into our latest lockdown/stay at home order... a week past our nomal "due date" for haircuts (7 weeks past our last trims)... and my shaggy, bushy hair is already driving me nuts. :(   And it will be another month, at the very least (and probably longer), before the salons will reopen...! I'm fine with wearing masks everywhere, social distancing, vaccinations, not going out for dinner, not going to the mall, even not going to the bookstore (lol)... but not getting a regular haircut?  HEEEELLLLLLPPPPPP.... 
• Jody Day of Gateway Women has started a new project to explore life as a "Conscious Childless Elderwoman." Aging is a huge concern for many women facing life without children -- and yet most of the literature out there on menopause and aging assumes there are children and grandchildren in the picture who will help. That just not the case, even for many women (and men) who DO have children and grandchildren. Have a read, and sign up for the newsletter if you're interested!