Odds & ends

• The Springsteen tickets saga (part one here): I got an email last night that I was NOT among the select few to be granted Verified Fan status, which would allow me the opportunity to TRY to buy pre-sale tickets when they became available today. I was on the "waitlist."  "If tickets remain available to sell after the initially selected fans have shopped, we will use a lottery-style selection to invite Verified Fans from the waitlist to shop," the email said. ("If tickets remain available" -- yeah, right...!)   
• My sister offered to try to get us tickets for the Winnipeg show on Nov. 10th, if we wanted. It's one thing to go all that way to see Paul McCartney, when he was not playing Toronto on the same tour, but Bruce IS playing two shows in Toronto, a few days later. And it's one thing to spend the money to fly to Winnipeg in October, when the weather might still be fairly nice, to spend Canadian Thanksgiving with my family (especially when we haven't been there in the summertime)... it's another to to there in mid-November, when the weather is far more iffy, and when (hopefully) we will have already been there in the summer, and will be back again a little more than a month later for Christmas.  We thanked her, but decided to pass. 
• Dh (the original Springsteen fan in the family) was not interested, even for the Toronto shows. "Why are you even TRYING to get on the list for tickets?" he said to me. "You don't even want to eat in a restaurant, and you're going to sit in a crowded arena with 20,000 people??"  Good point. :(  
• I actually DID get an email with an access code around 11:15 this morning. I couldn't resist logging in and seeing what was available (and at what prices). There were only 27 people in line ahead of me, and I got in almost right away. By then, there were a few pairs of seats remaining at the back of the arena in the upper rows of the 100 level (at about $350 a pop -- which is about what my sister & I paid to see Paul McCartney & Elton John in Winnipeg a few years ago -- expensive enough, but not too bad). There were also some seats priced around $100 each, but they were all in the nosebleed section, at the sides of the stage and behind it. 
• I closed the window. In a different, covid-free world, it would have been nice to see Bruce again, but...  I wish I was a more adventurous person, but I'm not (and am certainly less so since stillbirth and infertility, not to mention three years of living through a pandemic...!).    
• The Bloglovin' saga:  Aside from the odd blip when some current posts pop up, it's basically been unavailable since (at least) early December. (Not much has changed since I wrote this post a month ago.)  Most of the ALI-related blogs I follow are listed on the blogrolls on the right-hand side of this page, so I've managed to keep up with most of them that way, but there are other non-ALI blogs I follow that I am hopelessly out of touch with now.
• I did export & save a file with my Bloglovin' content about a year ago, thinking I might try Feedly -- only to find out (as I described here) that Feedly doesn't let you follow more than 100 blogs at a time (unless you cough up money for a paid subscription). I currently have more than (gulp) 500 blogs on Bloglovin (albeit not all of them active). I declined to pay up back then, but I'm starting to reconsider... 
• Dh & I joined SIL, BIL & Little Great-Nephew last week for the weekly toddler storytime session at the local library (!). SIL took LGN there regularly this past year, but this was his first time back there since before Christmas, and the first time we'd ventured there to watch.  I was surprisingly OK with it all (albeit I suspect 20 years ago, it would have been a different story...). There were lots of grandparents there -- we were far from the only greyhairs, lol -- and it was fun to watch LGN interacting with other children (albeit sometimes I wanted to watch through my fingers, lol -- like when an excited LGN, running around the room, hopped over another toddler who was lying flat on the floor...!).  
• We arrived a few minutes after the session started, and when LGN saw us, he exclaimed to SIL (his grandma), "Uncle [dh] is here!" and started jumping up & down in delight. What a boost to the ego...!  ;)  
• (We were the only two people in the building wearing masks.) 
• Another LGN story:  He was also at his grandparents' house another day last week. SIL went to work in the late afternoon. BIL hasn't been feeling 100% lately and didn't want to be left with LGN by himself, so dh & I went over to keep them company until Older Nephew picked up LGN on his way home from work. 
• LGN LOVES being at his grandparents' house (who wouldn't love to be the focus of so much spoiling??), and does NOT like it when it's time to go home -- and especially when his dad is the one doing pickup! (Poor Older Nephew -- after a long day of work, too!)  He saw his dad come in and immediately dove under the kitchen table.  Older Nephew had to grab his ankles and drag him out, lol. I said, "Awww, LGN -- but you've been such a good boy all day!"  I helped Older Nephew as he struggled to put on LGN's winter jacket and boots. "[LGN], come on, you're being bad!" he said to his son in exasperation. LGN looked up at us, puzzled, the very image of innocence, and said, "But... Aunt Lori says I'm a good boy??"  I still crack up when I think about it. (I said, "Yes, you ARE a good boy, but you're going to have to be good for a while longer for Daddy!")  
• I was interested in the Notes From Three Pines Readalong, which Mel told us about a few weeks ago. I thought it was a great nudge to dive into Louise Penny's highly acclaimed Inspector Gamache mystery series, which I've been meaning to do for a while now, and I enjoy discussing books with others, in person or online. I recently finished and reviewed the first book in the series, "Still Life," here, just in time for the discussion for that particular book, which started today. 
• However!  (and beware, if you were thinking of joining in too): several of the posted discussion questions related to the series as a whole (i.e., it's assumed you've already read the other books) -- and one question in particular included a huge spoiler about what happens to one of the characters from the first book, later on in the series. 
• I know there's a lot of debate over how long we're expected to keep spoilers secret in an uber-connected world (especially related to movies & TV series). But both my D.E. Stevenson & L.M. Montgomery book groups make a point of asking people to be careful about revealing spoilers related to future chapters or future volumes in a series, out of consideration for those in the group (and there are some, alongside longtime, rabid fans) who haven't read the book before, or later books in the series.(If/when we do, we're expected to post a **SPOILERS!** warning.) And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are also reading the book(s) for the first time, after the new "Three Pines" TV series debuted recently on Amazon Prime. 
• I'll keep reading the series, and probably within the timeframes of the readalong (as I said, it's a good nudge!) -- but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to participate under the circumstances? Which is somewhat disappointing. :(   
• Next up: Gamache #2, "A Fatal Grace," on March 22nd. 
• "Titanic" (the movie) turns 25 this year (!). (And it's back in theatres!)  I was reminded of this by Meg Conley's recent post about the movie in her Homeculture newsletter on Substack.  I was not obsessed with the movie, or Leo diCaprio -- I was 37 years old by then, after all -- but I did enjoy it. Those incredibly realistic-looking long shots of that magnificent, doomed ship leaving port and steaming out to sea for the first and last time had me in tears, and yes, I cried at the end too. Dh was not interested in seeing it, so I went with my mother when she came to visit me that year, during her spring break, and not long before it won all the Oscars. 
• Did I mention I was pregnant at the time?  (As I wrote in this blog about the experience, 10 years after the fact, "I can't believe I sat through the entire 3+ hours without having to duck out to the washroom." lol)
• This article from the Globe & Mail (originally published last October and referenced again in a recent newsletter) stuck in my childless craw:  "What if moms decided to ‘quiet quit’?" It opens with the story of the one-day women's strike in October 1975 in Iceland -- known as "Women's Day Off" (note: WOMEN'S), in which 90% of Icelandic women walked off the job, both in the office and at home -- and then asks "What would happen if the moms of the world decided to embrace the idea of “quiet quitting” and refused to do the extras?"  
• Great point -- BUT! Throughout the article, the terms "women" and "moms" are used almost interchangeably (with "moms" the dominant reference).  I rather doubt that, even in 1975, 90% of all adult women in Iceland were mothers... 
• I don't doubt that moms are depleted, as the article suggests... but they are certainly not the only ones who experience stress and burnout while juggling multiple roles and caregiving demands. 
• Let's all say it together: "WOMAN" DOES NOT EQUAL"MOM."  (Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.)  
• I wonder what a similar walkout of childless/free women (or women & men) would look like?  For sure, it would not be quite as impactful as one by all women, like Iceland's -- but I think a lot of people would be surprised to realize just how big a group we really are (and we're a group that's rapidly growing!). 
• Jessica Grose's subscriber newsletter for the New York Times, which focuses primarily on parenting & family issues, is examining the decline in global fertility/birth rates in developed countries.  Last week, she posed an interesting question:  "Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?" (She's not talking about declining sperm counts, either.) Sample passage: 

[Vegard] Skirbekk [a population economist] argues, in part, that it’s because of a lack of “‘suitable’ men, as women have become increasingly selective.”... 

“Even in the world’s most gender-egalitarian countries, women tend to prefer men with relatively high income and education,” according to Skirbekk. Women also tend to not want to partner with men who have drug and alcohol problems or are prone to violence. [Note from Loribeth:  Well, duh...][How dare we be so picky, right??  :p  ] 

Presenting data from 27 Western countries, Skirbekk writes that in most instances, somewhere below 10 percent, in some cases below 5 percent, of the population seems to voluntarily opt for being childless. On an individual level, that’s not a problem: free country and all. But, I do think what Skirbekk calls coincidental childlessness — when people who never explicitly decided they don’t want children don’t have them for a variety of reasons — is a problem. If someone wants a child but doesn’t end up with one because of not finding a suitable partner, because of reaching age-related infertility, or because of the increasing expense of having children, that can be life altering.

• (This is consistent with what Jody Day of Gateway Women has written:  the vast majority of women without children do not choose to be childfree, or even wind up without children because of infertility issues. Not finding a partner who is not only suitable/desirable but also wants to have children with you, while you're still able to do so, is a huge issue that's not explored often enough.)  
• The newsletter is subscriber-only, but I'm a subscriber ;) and this link above is a gift link, so have a read and let me know what you think! 
• The comments are interesting.
• In a similar vein, Lyz Lenz's Substack newsletter ("Men Yell At Me" -- love that title, lol) points out that "Men Are Lonely. But Women Are Being Attacked." (Subhead: "Male loneliness is not a woman's problem to solve.")  Also worth a read! 
• Jess at A Different Path had a great post recently, asking "What IS Self-Care?" I thought of it when I read Anne Helen Petersen's latest Culture Study post, "The Tyranny of Faux Self-Care," which includes an interview with Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, author of a forthcoming book on the subject.  (The comments are also instructive!)