#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

Some odds & ends to start off the new week! 

• Once again, a tragic story unfolded this weekend, connected to a place I knew well in my childhood.  :(   Late last week, a small bus/van full of seniors from Dauphin, Manitoba, collided with a semi-truck at an intersection on the Trans-Canada Highway (the main east-west route that runs right across Canada). 10 people are dead (still to be publicly identified);  15 still in hospital.  They were just 10 minutes from their destination, a casino near the town of Carberry. It's believed to be the worst mass casualty event in my home province's history. :(  
• Between 1969 and 1974 (from the time I was 8 until I was 13), we lived in a small town about a 45-minute drive from Dauphin. Dauphin was the closest "big town" -- my mother would drive there every few weeks to buy groceries at the supermarket there (larger selection and lower prices than what we could get locally);  we would go there to see the dentist and optometrist and do other shopping;  and we would go there to the movies. Our best friends' mom & my mom would drop us off at the theatre for the Saturday matinee while they went shopping, and we'd all meet up later (and maybe pick up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken to take home and reheat for dinner, or stop at the A&W drive-in for hamburgers, fries and their signature root beer) before heading home again. 
• Between 1974 and 1980, we lived in another town along the Trans-Canada Highway, between Winnipeg & Brandon, and then between 1980 and 1984, while I was at university in Winnipeg, my parents lived in yet another small town, about an hour south of Brandon. So I've made that trip along the Trans-Canada, past that spot, many times, often by bus, to visit friends in Brandon and to visit my parents (they'd pick me up at the bus depot there and drive me home). 
• Five years ago, in the spring of 2018, another horrific bus/truck crash near Nipawin, Saskatchewan (as well as another nearby town where we'd lived, 1966-69), claimed the lives of 15 young hockey players from the town of Humboldt. (Those involved with investigating that crash and supporting the survivors and families are now providing assistance with this one.) And last fall, 10 people died and 18 were wounded in a murderous rampage through two communities in northeastern Saskatchewan, both near yet another small town where we'd once lived (1963-66). 
• Here's an excellent article from Psychology Today: "The Cruelty of Natalism."  (Subhead:  "Personal Perspective: If you don’t know what it means, that’s part of the problem.")  Excerpt: 

We all need to make room in our lives, and in the world, for people who don’t have, can’t have, and/or don’t want children. This requires checking our own natalism and working toward a world in which there’s a place for people without kids. Yes, some people are happily child-free. Others aren’t. Either way, they’re all struggling to exist in a world that tells them they don’t belong here.

• Well, what do you know? The New York Times ran an article about men & infertility on Father's Day! (Gift link.)  
• The NYT also offered tips on how to cope when Father's Day is hard, for whatever reason (which also apply for other difficult holidays & celebrations). (Gift link.) Content warning: adoption/birth announcement (on Mother's Day, no less...!) at the end of the article. 
• Speaking of Father's Day -- we watch CBS Sunday Morning every week, and we usually enjoy Jim Gaffigan's wry commentary -- he's one of dh's favourite comedians. But his piece today about fathers vs men who don't have kids totally missed the mark. :p  (There are lots of commenters on the show's Facebook page who agree with me.)  I'm not going to link to it directly, but if you're curious, it's on the show's website and also on its Facebook page. 
• Yael Wolfe hits it out of the ballpark once again with a rant on Medium about how aunties are undervalued ("The Auntie Era Has Arrived").  Unfortunately, it's a members-only story, and there don't appear to be any gift links.  :(  A couple of sample quotes: 

From where I’m sitting, childless and childfree aunties are one of the most unsung heroes of our world. And I’m so tired of witnessing our society judge and ignore them...

When I see the way childless/childfree aunties are treated, how invisible they are, and how underappreciated they are, I worry. When I hear people proclaim that mothers are more valuable to the world simply because of their parental status, I worry. And hell, when I see how much we fetishize the selflessness of mothers, I worry.

We don’t do this with men...  

• I didn't know who Tori Bowle was, but her sad death at 32 while 8 months pregnant has people talking about ecclampsia. (Gift links.)(I'm going to run out for the month soon...!) 
• Ten years ago (!), I wrote about my own mother's brush with ecclampsia when she gave birth to me, 62 years ago, after it was in the news when Lady Sybil Crawley, a character on "Downton Abbey," died from it. 
• Anne Helen Petersen features women talking about their fibroids in her Substack newsletter, Culture Study. 
• Jessica Wildfire, who writes the "OK Doomer" Substack, is even more cautious/paranoid about covid than I am.  And now her daughter is sick (with what to be determined...). I don't always agree with everything she writes, but I was nodding when I read this passage: 

It’s easy to call someone a doomer or a fearmonger if you’ve never lived through a rare tragedy. It’s easy to tell them to keep calm and carry on. It’s easy to tell them to look on the bright side. It’s easy to say everything will be fine.

It’s not so easy when you’ve lived through doom.

That’s why we keep our guard up.

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