New year odds & ends

• Well, I did it... I started the "chapter-a-day readalong" of "War & Peace" on Jan. 1st -- AND the Cromwell Trilogy readalong as well, which goes by the nickname "Wolf Crawl" (lol) and follows a weekly schedule.  It's still early days (still time to join in yourself...!), but so far, so good. 
• W&P has a HUGE cast of characters, some with the same names (!) -- but there is a wiki-style list to refresh your memory as to who's who, a great reader chat to follow, and the chapters are generally short in length -- and much more readable (and funnier!) than you might think. And it's all available for free! (Paid subscribers get bonus posts.) 
• "Wolf Hall" is much more dense, both in terms of subject matter and prose style -- but still absorbing, in a different way. In one of the early chapters, Thomas Cromwell's wife tells him why the king (Henry VIII)'s plan to divorce his wife (Catherine of Aragon) -- who, now in her 40s, has only produced a princess and not the male heir Henry craves -- matters:  

If he tries this … then half the people in the world will be against it… All women everywhere in England. All women who have a daughter but no sons. All women who have lost a child. All women who have lost any hope of having a child. All women who are forty.

(Author Hilary Mantel, of course, was childless due to severe endometriosis.)  

• My 63rd (!) birthday was last Friday. We marked the occasion with a trip to the nearby art gallery where I have a membership -- which is also what I did on my birthday last year!  I thought about having lunch at the cafe there, which has lovely ravine views, but it was already pretty busy -- plus the menu is limited and it's rather pricey. So I opted for takeout lunch from the nearby supermarket, with a pasta takeout dinner later from one of our favourite restaurants. After dinner, we had cupcakes from the supermarket for dessert (red velvet with cream cheese frosting). :)
• In between, I treated myself to a couple of new books at the mega-bookstore (aided by a gift card from my sister, plus my regular cardholder discount, plus a birthday discount!).   
• Younger Nephew & his wife both texted birthday greetings; Older Nephew, his wife and  Little Great-Nephew called, and LGN treated me to a boisterous rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" via speakerphone,  lol.  
• I spent most of Saturday on my laptop, watching the livestream of the Canadian National Figure Skating Championships from Calgary.  CBC, which had the broadcasting rights, chose to show hockey all day Saturday instead -- the new Professional Women's Hockey League games in the afternoon, and NHL in the evening (the NHL has ALWAYS ruled Saturday nights on CBC TV, since it began broadcasting in the early 1950s...!).  
• I don't begrudge the PWHL some airtime -- goodness knows it's been a LONG time coming...!  -- but I have been watching figure skating for more than 50 years (!), and the nationals (or at least, highlights from it) have NEVER NOT been shown on one network or another...! :(    And it would have been nice to be able to watch on something larger than my 15" laptop...!  
• The (not large to begin with) arena was only about half full.  :(  I can speculate on a number of reasons why: continuing fallout from the pandemic, the brutally cold weather out west, pricey tickets (at a time when people's finances are tight), the lack of star power among the current crop of skaters (compared to years past), the current ban on Russian competitors in international competitions -- well deserved, but admittedly makes things less exciting to watch -- plus we're right between Olympics right now, when interest is always at its lowest -- etc. etc.  But! -- you're never going to grow interest in the sport by making it more difficult for people to watch...!  :(  
• Monday/Last night, we had dinner at Younger Nephew's, along with BIL & SIL.  Between pre-Christmas busy-ness, being away over Christmas, and BIL & SIL coming down with covid, we hadn't seen Little Great-Niece (now 10 months old) in two months, and she was great entertainment.  :)  She was wearing an adorable outfit I'd given her for Christmas -- is now sporting a few tiny teeth, scoots across the floor on all fours, and pulls herself up on the furniture. She was fascinated by my watch, bracelets and cellphone camera (I let her take a few selfies), and exchanged raspberries with a delighted dh. (But of all her visitors, she clearly loved her Nonna/Grandma the best!)  Needless to say, we had a good time.  :)     
• Since they live nearby, and visitor parking at their townhouse complex is scarce, we decided to walk. It didn't take us very long -- only about 5 minutes, maybe a little more -- but it was about -12C/ -19C with the windchill (11F and -2F, respectively) -- and we were walking straight into the wind!  Dh -- normally a brisk walker anyway -- was walking even faster to make the trip shorter -- and holy cow, am I ever out of shape...! :p  Regular walking is definitely going back on the schedule, once better weather returns...!  
• I subscribe to a lot of Substack newsletters (which, to me, are just blogs in another format!). Ohio journalist Connie Schultz (incidentally, married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown) has become one of my favourites there. Her most recent post, "How a Tweet Became a Children's Book," will show you why. (Warning:  have kleenex handy.)  
• From the Oldster Substack, edited by Sari Botton, a gorgeous personal essay: "The Golden Seed."  Tagline:  "At 52, while teaching music in a preschool, Starina Catchatoorian is confronted by her grief over missing out on motherhood." 
• This piece, from "Hey Reprotech" by Alison Motluk, is an eye-opener, about the costs (monetary and non) of infertility treatment in Ontario, especially when you live outside an urban area: "What I learned from looking at one Ontario woman's $100,000+ expenditure on fertility treatment." 
• I know many of us struggle with the idea of legacy and what kind of a mark we're going to leave on the world, if we don't have children. There was an article about legacy in the Washington Post recently (gift link). Children are mentioned, but NOT having children is also mentioned! and some of the examples given are things we can do whether we have children or not.  
• Many of us also struggle with who's going to help us out as we age without children (and, often, without partners and/or extended family members nearby). Jody Day of Gateway Women flagged this article about a consultant based in St. Paul, Minnesota, who is working for systemic change in this area.