Midweek odds & ends

• (Very) proud great-auntie moment today:  we went to visit Little Great-Nephew & his grandma this morning. And... he called me by my name for the first time!! I could scarcely believe my ears, but SIL said, "Did you hear that?" Dh heard it too. :)  His vocabulary is growing all the time, and he's getting clearer/easier to understand too.  
• So -- you might remember that, back in November 2019, SIL & I bought tickets to see Elton John here in Toronto on March 29th, 2020... of course, covid intervened, and the concert was postponed, first to Feb. 15th, 2022, and then, more recently, postponed again to March 13th. There was a limited-time window to request a refund, and SIL & I decided to take it. I received a confirmation that my request had been received on Jan. 23rd. (Here's my most recent Elton-related post, with links going further back.) 
• The latest chapter in this seemingly neverending saga: I haven't received the refund yet -- BUT, on Tuesday morning (Feb. 1), I received an email from Ticketmaster:  

Your Event Has Been Postponed. [My reaction: !!!] This is just a heads up — your tickets are still valid... The Event Organizer is still trying to reschedule your event; if they do, your tickets will remain good for the rescheduled date. Hang on to your tickets — we'll email you as soon as the status of your event changes or the new date is announced.  Please Note: Your Event Organizer is not allowing refunds at this time. [??] Event Organizers are constantly assessing the situation and making determinations regarding refunds. You can always check your Ticketmaster Account later, as this status may change. Just go to your order to see if a refund link appears, which would indicate that the Event Organizer has made your order eligible for a refund.

So -- they obviously haven't processed my refund yet. I'm assuming I am still getting one?? As I said in a previous post, "I figured that March 13th was still highly optimistic -- in fact, under the provincial government's current reopening plans (which are subject to change, depending on how things go...), capacity limits on large events venues (like arenas) will not be lifted until March 14th -- the day AFTER the concert!"  

It will be interesting to see how much further back they push the date? -- although the wording ("if they do...") suggests it might not be rescheduled at all. Much as the guy loves performing, he probably just wants to get off the road already -- I'm sure he never dreamed when he started his "farewell tour" back in September 2018 that he'd still be doing it well into 2023...! 

• I was stopped in my tracks by this article, written by a woman whose chronically ill sister was determined to have a baby, despite warnings from her doctors. It cost her her life, as well as the life of her unborn child.  :(  "I fear I lost my sister to this idea that women’s lives are incomplete until they’ve been through childbirth," the author writes. If that's not pronatalism at work, I don't know what is...  
• I found a lot of food for thought in this article from the Globe & Mail about the importance of rituals in our lives, how they help us process changes to our identity, how the pandemic has interfered with our ability to celebrate/mark these important milestones and (importantly for us as childless women) the importance of creating new rituals in the absence of the old ones. There are the usual pronatalist examples of life milestones/rituals (weddings, baby showers, etc.) -- which of course reminds us that one reason childlessness hurts so much is that we miss out on a lot of these established "rites of passage," as well chances for a do-over with the ones we missed out on or have regrets about in our own lives. In some ways, we find ourselves stuck in the liminal state/"identity limbo" the author mentions. But I think this is a good way to start thinking about these issues, and worth a read. 
• I wrote about childlessness and the absence of rituals/milestone celebrations, back in 2016, here. ("Menopause parade," anyone??) 
• "Want To Know Why Women Under 30 Don't Have Kids? Start Asking Men." Yes!! 
• In the same vein -- I think this article is the first one I've seen (certainly in quite a while, if ever??) where a man owns up (kinda/sorta...) to his part in why women may not be having the children they wanted:  "Are men like me the reason young women aren’t starting families?" by James Innes-Smith in The Telegraph. (You may have to register to read it.) 
• Finally, Pamela -- one of the first bloggers I discovered who was writing specifically about childlessness after infertility -- is celebrating Blogoversary #15 this week!!  Go over & congratulate her on this milestone!