Weekend odds & ends

• Finally!! The thermometer cracked 20C on Tuesday afternoon, and headed into the mid/high 20s over the next few days. Dh & I went for our first gelatos of the season, and I pulled out my capris & sandals. (I haven't been for a pedicure since fall 2019, before covid, but I'm seriously tempted...)  The balcony door has been open for most of the day for the past several days. Finally!!!  
• While it's been warm & pleasant, there wasn't any humidity for several days. On Thursday evening, after the balcony door had been open all day, the thermostat (showing the temperature inside our condo) read 79F (about 26C) -- but because the humidity was only about 30%, it was not at all uncomfortable.  
• We did start getting some humidity on Friday, and turned on the air conditioning then. 
• (Our weather forecasts and readings are in Celsius, but our thermostat is set to degrees Fahrenheit, as it has been my entire life. Which is to say, I'm a typical Canadian, especially of my generation, lol -- straddling both Imperial and metric systems!)   
• The downside of having the balcony door open all day: (as I've complained here many times before) our next-door neighbour appears to be a cannabis addict. :p  We often see (& certainly smell) him smoking on their balcony, which is only a few feet away from ours. I smelled it no less than FIVE times in one day this week. It's one thing on a Saturday night, or even in the evening after supper or something like that -- but FIVE times (sometimes more) a day?? 
• We got our fourth covid shots/second boosters on Wednesday afternoon (almost exactly 5 months after the last one), at the vaccine clinic attached to our family dr's office. Unlike the last time we went, we were the only ones there!  Dh asked the (very friendly, chatty) nurse if they'd been busy and she said it was pretty steady -- right up until the province dropped all the restrictions and mask mandates in March -- and then business fell off like a stone. She also works in a hospital ER and said none of the people coming in with covid have had their boosters. 
• I'd had to pick a vaccine when registering for the appointments, so I put down Pfizer, since that's the last one we had -- but she said they had both in stock and we could have our pick. She said Moderna tends to build more antibodies and lasts longer, so we went with that again. (We had AstraZeneca for our first, Moderna for the second, Pfizer for the third and now Moderna again for the fourth!) I had a sore arm and was very tired/fatigued that night (but that could also be because we'd spent the morning chasing Little Great-Nephew around the park...! lol).  There was some arm soreness over the next few days, but that's entirely normal for me with any kind of shots. 
• Sad news:  SIL is giving the puppy to her niece. :(  They're coming to get her this weekend. The puppy is a good, sweet little dog -- but, she's a puppy! -- and SIL admitted it's been just too much for her to handle, particularly on top of taking care of her grandson/our Little Great-Nephew. (But the niece's little boy -- SIL's great-nephew -- is thrilled!) 
• We got to spend some extra time with Little Great-Nephew this week, in addition to our usual mid-week visit at his grandma's (SIL's) house:  his mom had a Zoom interview for a higher-paying job on Friday afternoon, so we drove up to their house (about an hour away) and spent two hours playing with LGN in the back yard while she got ready and had her interview. 
• (She texted me as we were driving home -- they called her back, and she got the job! Not only does it pay more than her current job, she can work from home, which will mean big savings on gas, and will make it a little easier for her to juggle when LGN starts school (junior kindergarten) in the fall of 2023.) 
• Yael Wolfe announced "I'm retiring from aunthood" on Medium. Food for thought, for both childless/free aunties (and uncles) and the parents of their nieces and nephews. You all know how much dh & I love being an uncle & aunt (and great-uncle and great-aunt) -- but I know not everyone's experience has been as happy as ours has been -- and yes, there have been times when the relationship has felt a bit one-sided... Sample quote: 

I have been anything but selfish. I have been selfless. For fifteen years. For other people’s children.  

 Also this:  

I sit here writing this on Mother’s Day, my phone is pinging every few minutes. I’m not looking at it because I’m the only one in the group text thread who isn’t included in these Happy Mother’s Day messages. I’m the only one who doesn’t have kids. I’m the only one who doesn’t have presents to show everyone, like my sister’s new t-shirt, adorned with photos of the kids that says, “We love Mom!”

You know what? I want a t-shirt with their faces on it that says, “We love Auntie!” Yeah, I do. Selfish? Screw that. What have you done for your nieces and nephews lately? Wait until Aunt’s Day when it’s my turn? When’s that, honey? No, you can’t google it before you answer. If you don’t know the date off the top of your head, that shows you how little anyone cares about Aunt’s Day. It’s July 26th, FYI, and absolutely no one celebrates it. So again: screw that.

• I stumbled onto this essay on Medium, which had me nodding in agreement as I read:  "Stop Telling People ‘They’ll Understand When They Have Kids’ " (Subhead: "Not everyone will have kids."  Yes!)
• And finally, in the "WTAF??!" category: "Indian couple longing for grandchild sues son, his wife."  "A retired Indian couple is suing their son and daughter-in-law, demanding that they produce a grandchild within a year or pay them 50 million rupees ($675,000),"  the story says. (Demanding!!)(The son and daughter-in-law could not be reached for comment.)