#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

• Vaccine update: So (to recap) it’s been a full week since we (finally!) became eligible for our second shots... and we haven't heard anything from the Rexall pharmacy where we had our first shots, aside from an email  last Monday, asking us whether we'd prefer AstraZeneca again, or Pfizer. Meanwhile, I’ve been on the provincial & regional portals at least once a day to see if we could book anything there right away/earlier, but I've had absolutely no luck. (Our appointment booking system is ridiculous.)
  • Today, I called the Rexall pharmacy where we got our first shots (11 weeks ago today) and spoke to a pharmacist. She said they ARE doing AZ shots right now (!) -- but they have NO Pfizer in supply. They think they MIGHT get some next week.  
  • After that, I tried calling the Shoppers Drug Mart where we get our prescriptions filled -- and could not find a way to talk to a real live person. (eyeroll) I eventually found a website showing all the local Shoppers (it's the country's biggest drugstore chain and there are 3 or 4 within an easy drive) that are doing vaccines and indicating what they have available. Most of them say they have AZ -- but NOBODY seems to have Pfizer right now.  
  • Then I remembered there was a news story this weekend that this week's Pfizer shipment has been delayed (!) -- and so all the provincial clinics that have been offering Pfizer are using Moderna instead – and some people are turning up their noses at that. (You can’t really blame them, after being jerked around with AZ so much!) 
  • There has been a sudden influx of stories encouraging people to take the Moderna -- it's (essentially) exactly the same as Pfizer.  There ARE a few smaller pharmacies in the area that are listed as offering Moderna.  I am tempted to try for that -- but I'm afraid my mother -- who was supremely pissed off when we took AstraZeneca as our first dose, and is the main reason why we asked for Pfizer for our second shots -- would freak out over that too. (eyeroll)   Dh is inclined to wait & see if the Rexall gets any Pfizer by next week -- and if not, then look for Moderna shots elsewhere. Sigh... It will be 12 weeks since our first shots next Monday, and we just want to get these second doses DONE. 
• Sunday was Father's Day. Stores reopened last week, but we knew they'd be swamped with pent-up shoppers, and weren't anxious to join them just yet.  And so, for the second Father's Day in a row, I used a blank notecard as a makeshift card for dh (thank heaven for my obsession with pretty paper and notecards, lol -- and that I didn't get rid of all of them when we moved...!) and called my dad, and that was about it. (Dh's dad/my FIL died in August 2018.)  I told dh dinner was his pick, which turned out to be... macaroni & cheese??  (Whatever turns you on, right?)  
• Also on Sunday afternoon: another fabulous gathering of Childless Elderwomen, hosted by Jody Day of Gateway Women. Recordings of this and other past gatherings are available on the Gateway Women website. If you haven't attended/watched one yet, you are in for a treat!  :)  These sessions are timed to coincide with the seasonal solstices/equinoxes;  next one will be in September, during World Childless Week. :)  
• Jody also appeared on another podcast recently, this time in conversation with Sara Avant Stover. Excerpt, link to the full podcast and transcript available here. (I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but I did read the transcript.) 
• Interesting first-person article (by a pregnant woman) in the Toronto Star:  "Why the image of a glowing, round-bellied ‘earth mother’ is not as benign as you might think." If maternity shoot photos (including Beyonce's) are triggering for you, you might want to pass on reading this one, but there are some thoughtful observations here. Sample passage: 

Part of the problem with this sort of glorification is that it allows us, as a society, to avoid taking concrete actions to materially support what we glorify, as if the praise and the pedestal are support enough. Just as saying “being a mom is the most important job in the world” doesn’t make that job pay — and yet still makes us feel like we’ve somehow supported mothers — so revering rosy-cheeked, round-bellied, earth-mother images makes us feel like we respect what pregnant people do for society, without actually having to do anything tangible to support them...

The other problem with glorification is that it always has a flip side — for every revered virgin, there is a whore: opposed to the untouchable virgin on her pedestal, the whore is reviled and desired, but never glorified; she is intended, in fact, to be disposable. This two-sided coin of glorification and vilification — of the virgin and the whore, the earth mother and the welfare mom — leaves little room for real women living real lives, little room for humanity.

(I would suggest that perhaps the flipside of the revered earth mother is not the welfare mom, but the much-vilified childless/free woman??) 

• The New York Times had a really interesting piece on "Why American Women Everywhere Are Delaying Motherhood." Among the reasons cited:  prioritizing education and careers; the high costs of child care and housing; high levels of student debt; better access to birth control, which allows women today to control their fertility and their lives more than their mothers could;  lack of meaningful support from governments and workplaces; and today's high-stress "intensive parenting" style, which places greater demands on parents. 
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  Even more interesting, however, was the comments section, where (among other great points) quite a few women took the article to task for not mentioning one huge unmentioned reason:  the lack of suitable partners to have children with (and why aren't people asking MEN about why THEY are delaying fatherhood??).  I normally caution "beware the comments section!" (and there are always a few that make you roll your eyes and throw up your hands...!), but I actually found the discussion here pretty fascinating.   

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.