#MicroblogMondays: A few odds & ends

Some personal notes:  

• Saturday was our wedding anniversary: #39!!  
• Because it was Saturday, we knew that anywhere we went would be nuts (eyeroll), so we mostly stayed close to home. Got invited to BIL's for lunch (barbecued chicken burgers and hot dogs), and SIL gave me a bouquet of sunflowers and a lovely photo frame. :)  Little Great-Nephew was there too (Dad working, Mom at a pool party with her friends).  
• If we weren't heading west soon to visit my elderly parents, I would have been receptive to having dinner out at a restaurant (something we've rarely done since the pandemic began). Instead, we ordered takeout from a favourite restaurant, and went out for gelato later. (It was nuts there, as expected...!)  
• Hoping we can go somewhere nice to mark the milestone anniversary next year!   
• Little Great-Nephew had an ear infection and mild temperature all last week, and missed his first week of summer day camp as a result. :(  
• His mom took a few days off work to be with him, but had an appointment with her ob-gyn one day -- so dh & I met her & LGN at BIL & SIL's house (while BIL & SIL were at work) and stayed there with the little guy for a few hours while she went for her appointment.  
• Two days later, she needed to get back to work. BIL & SIL were both working, so dh & I met the two of them at her workplace at 8 a.m. (!), transferred the kiddie car seat to our car and took LGN to his grandparents' house. (He's comfortable there and has a ton of toys there to play with, so it's better than bringing him to our place!)  BIL got off work around noon (he's only working part-time at the moment), brought LGN a McDonalds Happy Meal for lunch and took over from that point.  
• It's been increasingly warmer and more humid this past few days -- again (and going to get warmer still over the next few days). Unfortunately, the "chiller" unit for our building -- which chills the air for air conditioning to the common areas and individual units -- hasn't been working properly.  As a result, our a/c unit has been periodically blowing cool but not cold air. As a further result, the temperature and humidity levels started creeping up -- peaking mid-afternoon yesterday at 25C+ (about 77-78F) and 67%, respectively. :p  (Our thermostat/a/c is set at 74F in the summer months.) Thankfully, they must have called in the HVAC techs, because it started blowing cold air again later in the afternoon.  It wasn't BAD, but it wasn't great either...!   
• My Kobo e-reader has not been syncing... AGAIN.  :p  Last time I successfully synced/downloaded a book was March 18th = almost 4 months ago. There are a few books I've bought recently that I wanted to download to have on hand for my trip west... so Friday night, I bit the bullet, signed out of my account on my e-reader and then back in again. This has worked in the past, and it worked again this time (whew!).  But it's such a pain in the a**, because it only downloads the last five books you've bought or most recently accessed -- and it wipes out all of your bookmarks, highlights, etc.  I had to re-download all the books I want to have on hand. And every time I go to sync again now, I hold my breath...! Sigh. 

A couple of  recent good reads: 

• From Clodagh Finn in the Irish Examiner: "Women without children face the brunt of bias." 
• From Salon:  "Grief is brutal, but there is value in it, experts say. So why do we try to "cure" it?" I've added this author's book to my wishlist! 
• I loved Soraya Chemaly's book "Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger" (reviewed here), and her new book "The Resilience Myth" is (also!) on my wishlist. Nora McInerny calls "resilience" "A Word I Hate" in her Substack "She Tried."  I haven't listened to the podcast or watched the YouTube video yet, but Nora is always great on these subjects.  :)  

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