#MicroblogMondays: Valentine's Day/Mid-February odds & ends (& rants!)

(Including a couple of rants/vents on various topics that have been bugging me lately...!) 

• It's Valentine's Day -- and dh & I are marking our 40th (!!) Valentine's Day together.  :)  (We met 40 years ago last October, and had our first date 40 years ago last month.) 
• It's never been a big-deal day for us... mostly we just exchange cards. We used to go out for dinner, sometimes, earlier in our marriage, but it was always so crowded and noisy and expensive, we gave that up. I've always told dh not to get me any flowers, because the prices are always SO ridiculous -- but he did pick me up a small box of chocolates when he was at the supermarket on Valentine's Day last year, which was a completely unexpected treat and a mid-February/covid winter pick-me-up.  :)  (I will NEVER turn down chocolate!  lol)  
• I still have the first Valentine's Day card he gave me (and all the other ones since then too). 
• Past Valentine's Day-related posts have been tagged, here. 
• Recap: The Elton John concert that SIL & I bought tickets for, way back in November 2019 -- originally scheduled for March 29th, 2020, then rescheduled for Feb. 15th, 2022 -- was postponed again to March 13th. There was an option to ask for a refund within 7 days of the change in date -- and we decided to take it.  But then, on Feb. 1st, I got an email saying "Your event has been postponed," saying organizers were trying to reschedule. 
• Update: Finally, on Feb. 11th, I got another email saying the event had been cancelled :(  and a refund would be forthcoming. I went on Ticketmaster and checked all the Elton John dates for Toronto, just to be certain, and sure enough, the March 12th & 13th dates (as well as the February dates) were all cancelled. It's a relief to finally have things settled, one way or another. 
• There's a September date at the Rogers Centre/SkyDome stadium that's still on, but I'm sure most of the seats for that are long gone -- and even if there are tickets available, who knows what the covid situation will be by then?? -- I don't want to buy tickets for anything too far in advance right now...! 
• BIL called dh early last week and invited us to come to dinner last Saturday night. Both nephews, their wives and (of course) Little Great-Nephew were all coming. (He didn't mention it, but it's his & SIL's wedding anniversary this week, and I suspect that may have been the reason for the family get-together.)
  • Then he called again a day or so later -- to UNinvite us. (!) He said to dh, "Don't get mad!" Dh said he knew he felt very guilty. You have to know BIL... he's got a huge heart, and he's very impulsive. Doesn't always think things through, and doesn't have a lot of filters. ;)  He told dh they wanted LGN to spend some time "bonding" with his aunt & uncle (Younger Nephew & his wife, who are LGN's godparents). They are even more paranoid about covid than dh & I are, and none of us have seen much of them over the past two years (even though we all live in the same area) -- so they haven't spent much time with the little guy, certainly not as much as dh & I have over the past year. They're also very, very covid-cautious, and would probably have been less inclined to come if too many people were around (even though we're almost as cautious as they are!). 
  • We weren't mad. (Dh actually thought it was hilarious -- so typically BIL.) BIL & SIL have always been so very kind about including us in things -- and they certainly have the right to be together as a family without us hanging around all the time. Especially right now, when family together time has been so limited.
  • But -- I have to admit -- it still stings a little. :(  
• I had to mute yet another person on social media (and am debating whether to unfollow outright), over some comments they made about what's been happening here in Canada, in Ottawa and at several border crossings (including one right outside the border town where I was born). Not the first, and probably not the last...  :(  
• I can't write too much about that whole situation (although I did, a little bit, in this post) --  I can't even watch the news right now -- because I am just so, SO angry about the whole thing -- about the "protests" and the people behind them, the politicians who are enabling them and hoping to cash in on it all, and the way things have been (mis)handled by the police and by all levels of government (municipal, provincial and federal)(and I know I am far from alone in feeling this way). :(  You can be damned sure that if these protesters were indigenous peoples or other people of colour, they would have been cleared out of there long, long ago (in fact, they never would have been allowed anywhere near Parliament Hill in the first place with that many trucks, etc.). My heart goes out to anyone living (or trying to live) in downtown Ottawa right now.    
• In other decidedly not-good news this morning, our premier has announced our province will be dropping vaccine passports, as well as all remaining capacity limits, as of March 1st -- about two weeks away, and sooner than expected. (Mask mandates will remain for now -- and thank goodness for that!)  Numbers *have* been on the decline -- but they still remain high overall, if you look at the past two years to date. I think it's premature. (Could the fact that there's an election coming up on June 2nd have anything to do with this eagerness to embrace "normalcy" so quickly? -- hmmm....) 
• I've never actually used my vaccine passport, other than to get through airport security at Christmastime. (Even then, they just looked at it, didn't scan it.) We haven't been in any restaurants or other venues where they are currently required -- but knowing that the mandate existed made me feel better about the prospect of going back, eventually. Needless to say, we are highly unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future, once those passport requirements are dropped (and most certainly once masks are abandoned).  The numbers will have to come down a whole lot more, and remain low for quite a while, before we'll consider doing that. 
• This is an incredible story of siblings and half-siblings reunited through the miracle of modern DNA testing. It's also a heartbreaking tale of poverty, abuse and black-market adoptions in Quebec in the 1950s.  Worth a read! 

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