Odds & ends

• Last Sunday (July 23rd -- always the last Sunday of July) was Aunties Day. I had it written in my calendar, or else I probably would have forgotten about it completely -- it's not like it's well known outside the childless/free auntie community, right? (and it's not even that well known there/here, sadly...)(unlike that "other" holiday...! -- as I wrote a few years back), and I haven't been on social media much lately to notice if anyone else was posting about it. Anyway, here's to all the unsung aunties & godmothers out there!  
• Yael Wolfe wrote about Aunties Day after the fact on Medium: "It’s Aunt’s Day…and It’s Time We Celebrated the Aunties of the World."  It's for members only (and there don't seem to be gift links), but here's an excerpt:

As a culture, we seem to understand the value (at least to some extent) of having grandparents actively involved in their grandchildren’s lives. We understand how enriching it is to all parties, helping generations bridge the gap across time and build strong family legacies.

Strangely, we do not seem to recognize the value of having aunts and uncles actively involved in their niblings’ lives.

I’m not surprised by this — again, I call out pronatalism that would attach the most value in families to relationships that are forged by parent-child bonds. We value grandparents more because they are parents. Aunts and uncles might not be, and even if they are, their contributions to their families are often seen as secondary in the absence of these parent-child bonds.

and 

We love them. We absolutely love them.

And what’s all the more notable about this is that we don’t have to. Parents are stuck with the kids they push out into the world. They have a legal and (ideally) emotional obligation to them.

Aunts and uncles are under no such obligation. And yet we keep showing up just because we love those little beings.

Makes you wonder about all those parents who say women without children could never know true love and true sacrifice, doesn’t it? They don’t have any choice but to practice “true love” (whatever that means) and sacrifice.

But aunts do, and many of us figured that out without having become mothers… 

 and 

If we’re so committed as a society to value our children and the family that raises them, why don’t we make more of an effort to show those who pitch in how much it means to us?

• I haven't had much time for podcasts lately, but I did manage to tune in live to hear Christine Erickson in conversation with Stephanie Joy Phillips about World Childless Week on New Legacy Radio. You can listen to the replay here, or on many other podcast platforms.  
• World Childless Week 2023 is coming up!  Sept. 11th to 17th.  Deadline for submissions is Sunday, August 27th!  The list of this year's topics is here.   
• I love, love, loved this recent New York Times story about intergenerational friendship between two women/neighbours. (It pays to get to know your neighbours!)  Bonus: children are not mentioned as part of either woman's story. I am assuming they are both childless/free. (Gift link.)
• The Guardian recently talked to an embryologist at a fertility clinic about how her own infertility journey and losses have affected her and how she now does her job.  Headline: "The IVF specialist who lost multiple pregnancies: ‘I had spent years making people’s dreams come true. It felt so unfair’." 
• From the Daily Mail:  "Why we childless women are sick of being exploited by mums in the office during the holidays."  
• Sample quote: " 'What upsets me most is that I had their backs during lockdown, manning the phones in the office so they could stay at home, as I understood how hard it was to work while home-schooling kids. I feel sad the same goodwill doesn't seem to be there for me.' " 
• (This was a frequent issue mentioned in the discussion about "Your Childless Experience" on Anne Helen Petersen's Substack newsletter, "Culture Study," which I wrote about here.) 
• Jody Day of Gateway Women appeared on two different radio programs to comment on this issue: 
• BBC Essex (link available through mid/late August) -- the relevant segment begins around the 3:09 mark, and Jody appears around 3:24.
• And on Newstalk Breakfast (Ireland)(link within story). 
• This Globe & Mail article doesn't mention pregnancy loss, infertility or childlessness, but I thought it was still highly relevant:  "Paying the ‘grief tax’ and the other hidden costs of caregiving." (Gift link.) 
• Mel recently posted that it's been 10 years (!) since the demise of Google Reader (and shared a great article about it). Says Mel: "Social media is often blamed for the decline in blogging, but I think closing Google Reader contributed to the mass exodus to Facebook updates. Make it hard to read blogs, and people will stop reading blogs. Alas."  
• I think she's right. I sometimes mention blog readers to women in some of the non-blogging childless communities I participate in -- and they have no idea what I'm talking about. 
• I still miss Google Reader. As you all know well (I've complained about it enough here, lol), I used Bloglovin quite happily for most of the past decade, but it rapidly went downhill in recent years and became increasingly unreliable. I finally bit the bullet, downloaded Feedly and paid for the premium service (because the free version limited me to 100 blogs -- hahahahaha....).  I haven't had a lot of time lately for blog reading, but so far, so good...  

Odds & ends & updates

• Hey, it wasn't just my imagination!!  Ontario (and the Toronto area, where I live) experienced its darkest winter in more than 80 years.  :p  
• Bloglovin' update: More of the same crap, as described in previous posts (with a few more posts showing up in Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic characters -- when they showed up at all...!). It's been more than a year since I started having regular issues with the site, and it's been more or less defunct since last fall. Incredibly frustrating.
• As a result -- I finally got fed up enough to pay for an upgraded account on Feedly (paid annually), which gives me access to up to 1,000 feeds (vs 100 for free). (I followed almost 600 blogs on Bloglovin -- gulp!  Not all of them active, mind you, but...!)  
• Thankfully, I had backed up my Bloglovin feed about a year ago (and haven't added too many blogs since then), and I still had the file saved -- I just uploaded it to Feedly and voila!  It even imported the categories I had created on Bloglovin, so I don't have too much (re)organizing to do. There were a couple of blogs that "failed to add" (mostly older ones that haven't posted anything in years) but that's OK.  
• The Feedly setup will take a little getting used to -- but I'm hoping for more reliable service than I've been getting from Bloglovin for the past year or so...! and I'm looking forward to staying better updated from now on...! 
• I've kept my Bloglovin' bookmark for now, but deleted it from my startup tabs on my laptop (and added Feedly instead). On my cellphone, I deleted the app entirely. 
• A couple of Little Great-Nephew stories I want to remember, from a visit to BIL & SIL's house on Monday (before we spent the day with him on Wednesday):  
• SIL: "[LGN], if you use the potty, I'll get you some ice cream."  LGN (after thinking for a moment): "What KIND of ice cream?" 🤣
• Dh, as we were leaving: "Now [LGN], you're going to be good for Daddy when he comes to get you tonight, aren't you?  You're not going to cry or kick..."  LGN, nodding:  "Or hide under the table..."  🤣
• After spending the day with LGN on Wednesday (see post link above), this article (via The NotMom on social media) was very timely and struck a chord:  "I Will Never Be a Grandparent."  
• Three cheers for Carolyn Hax of the Washington Post, whose advice is generally pretty sound and sympathetic towards the childless/free, infertile and grieving, and whose answer to a recent impatient would-be grandfather (essentially:  MYOB)  warmed my heart.  :)  Here's a gift link: "Would-be grandpa scoffs at couple’s reason not to have kids." 
• Also for Yael Wolfe on Medium: "Stop Giving Unsolicited Reproductive Advice to Childless Women." Just read it;  it's fabulous.  :)  
• In an "odds & ends" post last weekend, I mentioned a Times of London article/book excerpt by Elizabeth Day, "My fertility sadness — and what not to say to a childless woman." 
• Blogger Jennie Agg from The Uterus Monologues, who now writes a Substack at "Life, Almost" (and has a new book by the same name) has referenced it in a thoughtful post about "fertility privilege" -- "A child is not a kitchen extension." Sample passage (but please, go read the whole thing!):  

It’s a brilliant coinage, I think. Those of us who have walked a similar path to Day, whether through loss, infertility - or both - know instantly what she means here. Most people are wildly unaware of their own fertility privilege.

It’s there in Mother’s Day cards that say things like: ‘Well done mum for keeping me alive!’. Or first birthday posts on social media that are captioned to the effect: ‘Kept them alive for a whole year!’

It’s there in the way people will casually say: ‘We’re going to keep going until we get a girl/boy’. Or: ‘We want one of each’. (In a chapter of Life, Almost I write about the way we’ve normalised discussions about family size ‘as though it were always a straightforward choice – like ordering from a menu: two girls and a boy, with a side of twins, please’.)

When I asked on social media for other examples, the response was overwhelming, from ‘being able to joke about a partner needing a vasectomy’ to ‘taking family members along to scans for fun’. Other commonly given examples were conversations about ‘ideal’ age gaps or timing pregnancies around seasons, the start of the school year, or work contracts. (Or worse, joking to someone who is pregnant and due over a holiday or other significant date: ‘Well that wasn’t very well-timed, was it?’ or ‘I wouldn’t want a Christmas baby, personally’.)  

It’s not that saying these things makes you a bad person. Or that you’re not allowed to think or feel them (or even say them, if you’re confident you’ve got the right audience). It’s simply that they’re brimming with unacknowledged privilege.

• From The Globe & Mail:  "My struggle with infertility is teaching me to move through life with intention." Sample passage: 

I want to have hope that I will be able to grow a child. But I also want to be prepared for a life that may mean I am unable to. I actually don’t want to only be prepared, I want to imagine myself able to find joy on many life paths.

One path leads to the experience of growing someone inside me, birthing them, guiding them through park music classes, temper tantrums, scuffed walls, stained carpets, graduations, rowdy teenage years with clinking bottles in knapsacks rushing out of the house thinking I’m oblivious to the mischief – all of that.

Then there are the infinite other paths – including alternate ways of becoming a parent – available to me in this life. All unique and all equally fulfilling and deserving of celebration of a life well lived.

• On a somewhat related note:  this New York Times opinion piece (gift-linked) muses on the Oscar-winning "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (which I have not yet seen) and the idea of multiple possible lives and alternate universes:  "I Fantasized About Multiple Timelines, and It Nearly Ruined My Life." It wasn't hard for me to think about how it related to grief, loss and infertility -- particularly this passage:  

For years, I couldn’t stop thinking about other, better timelines where it didn’t happen, where my stepfather was still alive and my family intact. It helped me understand what was missing, but it did not allow me to mourn what I’d lost.

And that’s the peril of the multiverse; I was becoming unreal to myself, nostalgic not for a time before the death happened but for a timeline in which it never happened at all. 

...We can joke or wonder whether we’re in the wrong timeline. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that this timeline is the only one we’ve got.

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!) 

Mid-January odds & ends

• The Dyson saga: We've been pretty busy since our our brand-new Dyson purifier/humidifier/fan unit broke down a week ago, on Tuesday, Jan. 10th (and I was NOT going to chase down Dyson customer service and raise my blood pressure on my birthday!!  lol). Here's what's happened since I chatted online and then speaking with a customer service rep on the phone that day (who promised to send me a repair ticket and details on where to take the unit), and then followed up later that day with an email:    
• I was amused to see an email from Dyson in my inbox on Saturday morning... inviting me to rate their customer service and provide some feedback on my latest interaction with them. As you can imagine, I was only too pleased to do so...!  
• In my survey comments, I requested that someone contact me as soon as possible -- via email -- with the service repair ticket and other information promised to me last Tuesday (Jan. 10th). 
• (I had the option of receiving a phone call or email.  On the one hand, it's sometimes easier to just talk to a human -- on the other hand, email provides a paper trail, and I won't miss the email, whereas one missed phone call can lead to an endless game of telephone tag...!)
• Sunday afternoon, out in the car with dh, BIL & SIL, I got an email from Dyson... in response to the email I'd left the previous Tuesday afternoon (five days earlier!) via the chat function, where I'd noted that I had not yet received the promised email with repair ticket number and address information. 

Hi Lori,

 

 Thank you for contacting Dyson. 

 

 We do apologize for the delay in response, as we have an influx of emails and are responding in the order received. 

 

We have reviewed your concern about the repair. We are really sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. We would like to inform you that your repair has been booked and the repair reference id is... [number provided!]. Please visit to Dyson service center with this id. They would be happy to assist you.

• A repair reference number -- YES!!  :) 
• BUT -- they didn't provide the address for the local repair facility/warehouse where we could take our unit?! 
• I did some Googling and found an address in the suburb the customer service rep had mentioned to me -- AND, lo and behold, a local email address!  I fired off an email asking for confirmation that this was, in fact, the right place for us to bring our unit. (It's about a half-hour drive away -- and we've already spent almost a week without use of our unit -- so I don't want to be making any unnecessary trips.)  
• That triggered an auto-response email, saying that I can expect a response within 24 hours. (Well, at least I know it was a valid email address!)  They're closed on the weekend, so I figured 24 hours = by Tuesday morning.  We've been busy and unable to take the unit in until Wednesday anyway.  
• It's now Tuesday afternoon... if I don't hear anything from them soon (and I'm not holding my breath...!), I'll call the general customer service line (AGAIN) and ask them to confirm the address. 
• Then yesterday (Monday) morning, I got a response from the comment I'd left on the customer service survey I'd completed on Saturday morning... in FRENCH. 
• I got the gist of what it said, but ran it through Google Translate to be sure. It said: "Hello, Thank you for contacting Dyson, we're sorry to hear you feel this way. You will shortly receive the information requested by our service team." (! -- do you get the feeling the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing??  Are they not all connected to the same systems??)   
• And... a few hours later, I got what turned out to be a duplicate of the earlier email (!). 
• Why does everything have to be so complicated??  
• This would be funny, if the damn machine wasn't so horribly expensive... 
• I think the humidity levels in our condo have only cracked 40% once in the week since the unit broke down, and they've often been in the low 30s.  :p  
• The Bloglovin' saga: After refreshing the window, it SEEMS to be up and running normally today??  I'm not getting too excited, though... little has changed since my last post on this subject on Dec. 23rd (!).  Aside from a few brief periods, it's basically been out since Dec. 5th.  It varies from day to day, between (1) some posts from a day or two previous, mixed in with posts dated from 2020, including some spam-ish content in foreign languages (Slavic, Asian, etc.)(!), (2) "not available" messages and (3) "502 Server Error" messages. Bah humbug... 
• The weather has been relentlessly dark, grey and gloomy since we returned from holidays... very depressing. There was a brief period of exception:  the sky cleared and the sun came out last Saturday!! and continued through Sunday & Monday!!  It was glorious!!  :)  (It also got a lot colder, but hey, that's the price we pay...!) 
• Back to grey and gloomy this morning (with freezing rain overnight that's now turned to drizzle...).  :p  
• It was a busy weekend:  two Zoom sessions on Saturday (actually three, but two were on at the same time -- one of them was a webinar that was recorded, so I opted to watch that one later) and one on Sunday. Plus going to see Little Great-Nephew skating on Sunday afternoon -- plus I was watching the Canadian national figure skating championships on TV both days in between Zoom calls (& PVRing to watch what I missed later...!).  
• Nationals took place not far from our old community, about an hour/90 minutes away from where we live now. Once I would have jumped at the opportunity to get tickets for an even so close by -- and there were lots of empty seats, even in this venue, which is much smaller than nationals venues of the past. But I'm no longer close with the "skating buddy" I used to attend shows & competitions with, years ago. Getting there on my own would have been a chore -- transit might have been possible, but not easy (a couple of hours trekking back & forth, and not a great area, especially after dark...).  I think dh would have gone with me (and done the driving), if I'd asked, but it's really not his "thing" -- plus I'm still leery about big public events and covid.  Plus I find I'm still in a bit of a post-Christmas/birthday "slump" where I don't have a lot of energy/bandwidth.  Those are my excuses, anyway...! 
• We made the trek to our optometrist's office in midtown Toronto yesterday. I was last there in late October as a follow-up from my surgery last July, and got the all-clear from him, with a request for me to return in six months (May) to check in on how things are going. A couple of weeks later, in mid/late November, I noticed some redness and irritation in the inner corner of my right eye (the one I had the surgery on -- of course!), and what looked to me like a bit of a clear bubble (cyst?) right where the white of the eye meets the iris. I've had clear cysts in the past; they generally disappeared on their own or with some drops. And of course, then there was Christmas. The eye has been looking slightly better since we got back home, but I decided I'd feel better if he had a look at it. He did (and so did his young associate), and told me he didn't see anything that concerned him, but to come back in May as scheduled for another look. What a load off my mind!   
• BIL is adjusting to unofficial retirement (long-term disability). In recent years (since dh's own premature retirement in 2013), he & dh have spoken over the phone almost every day... and the calls have increased since he found himself at home. He doesn't read, football season is almost over (lol), he doesn't have a lot of friends outside of work & family (and of course many of the other people he might call or visit are still working themselves), SIL is still working part-time, Little Great-Nephew has been (mostly) at home with his mom since before Christmas, since SHE's on disability too... In a nutshell, he's bored, lol.  
• I recently learned (via Facebook) that an old friend lost her first grandchild (her oldest child's baby). I sobbed as I read her post to dh (who also knew her well), and showed him the photos of an absolutely beautiful baby who hung on for a little more than three months in the hospital and passed away shortly after Christmas. A story we heard from our support group clients many times over the years -- but one that never loses its power to break your heart. :(  
• Coming soon:  some recent reading, with links to share!  

Christmas week odds & ends

• Bloglovin' has been up periodically since Sunday (the 18th) -- sort of. The content is all a day old or older. Then I started getting some posts out of date order, including some dated July 2020 (!!). Now I'm getting a "502 Server Error" message. Sigh.... 
• I am "home" for Christmas with my family -- arrived almost a week ago (!! -- already!), last Saturday. Freezing cold temperatures (currently -22C/-34C windchill  = -8F/-29F) and lots of snow... but we're here!  
• I came down with a scratchy throat the night before we left to come here. (Of course.) I offered to mask and/or test when we got to my parents' house (actually, before we got into my sister's car at the airport) but nobody took me up on it, and frankly (I am ashamed to admit), I was too chicken to test. :(  "If one of us goes down, we all go down," my sister offered helpfully. I subsequently developed sniffles and a bit of a cough, but it was nothing anywhere close to the cold I had back in September, and I am feeling much better now.  So far, everyone else is fine too. (Whew!) 
• My parents' neighbour -- one of the most covid-cautious people you'll meet -- has covid right now. His wife has banished him to the basement for the duration.  I also learned that a friend (a fellow CNBCer) recently spent four days in the hospital with covid and flu, on oxygen.  And Pamela at Silent Sorority is slowly recovering from her own nasty bout with covid -- go offer her some get well wishes!    
• I found out another (second) cousin of mine died recently, far too young -- the second one this year (actually, the third! -- see my next point).  :(   His aunt -- my mother's first cousin -- wrote me in her Christmas card that he had died. I never met him, but I'd met his late dad (another of my mom's first cousins) several times and seen his photos. Good looking guy, a few years younger than me -- 55 when he died, of pneumonia. Not sure if it was covid-related. Never married, no kids. I feel very sad, even though we never met... and now we never will.  :(  
• I don't think I wrote about the other second cousin, who was the second one this year to pass away (in November, from cancer). Again, her mom & mine were first cousins, and my mom used to babysit her and her older sister when she was a nursing school student in Minneapolis in the late 1950s.  I never met her (although I met her mom & younger sister when I was about 12), but my mom was in touch with her on Facebook. She was a talented cabaret singer and actress who lived in Chicago... single & childless, and gone far too soon, at age 69.  :(  
• I found a(nother!) Substack that I couldn't resist subscribing to (free subscription) -- the title tickled my funnybone ("OK Doomer" -- lol). I have no idea who Jessica Wildfire is, but I read through some of her recent backposts and her views on the pandemic seem to align a lot with mine, so...  A recent post: "Everyone's Getting Sick, and We're Almost Out of Drugs:  Here's why, and what I'm doing." 
• I know there's more I wanted to share, but I also wanted to get in another post before Christmas -- so this is it for now!  This can be a difficult time of year for so many people, for so many reasons -- hope you're all hanging in there!  xo

Pre-travel odds & ends

• Bloglovin' saga status:  Back up again on Monday morning, Dec. 12th. Out again Wednesday morning (Dec. 14th). :p  Still not up again. Sigh....
• Sorry I missed #MicroblogMondays this week, for the first time in ages... it's been busy, and I just couldn't find any inspiration in time... :(  
• The countdown to flying "home" for Christmas is in full swing right now... and... I'm fighting off a scratchy throat. Ugh. Warm saltwater gargles, tea, ibuprofen and essential oils are helping. I am inclined to believe it's more the result of how very dry it is in our condo right since the colder weather hit (despite our very expensive Dyson purifier/humidifier working overtime...) and less the result of any bugs we might have picked up. We have been out & about more often in the past two weeks than we normally have, but aside from that one restaurant lunch (two weeks ago today)(after which Little Great-Nephew's other grandma came down with covid...! -- but that was a full two weeks ago now...) and staying with LGN a couple of times, we've worn our masks everywhere when we've been out in public places.   
• And -- I think my gout has returned -- or is, at least, lurking in the shadows...  :(   I had it (and wrote about it) a year ago, in September 2021. No redness or swelling (yet?), but my left foot and the big toe in particular has been a bit achy lately, and it was enough to wake me up one morning this week at 4 a.m. I took some ibuprofen and wound up just getting up because I couldn't go back to sleep. :p  I don't think my diet has been particularly bad lately, but perhaps I've slipped up a bit on my sugar and water consumption (i.e., too much and not enough)?  (Of course this WOULD happen just as I'm heading "home" to see my parents. where abundant once-a-year Christmas treats await...!  Sigh...) 
• Katy Seppi of Chasing Creation and Lighthouse Women and Carrie Hauskens of Blooming With Care chatted on Zoom recently about "Navigating the Holidays."  The scheduled hour turned into an hour & a half!  and it's chock full of great ideas and insights! The link to the recording hasn't been posted yet, but I'll flag it when it's available.  
• I haven't had time to watch this one yet, but the lovely Karin Enfield deVries of Pure Transformations also chatted about the holidays in a recorded webinar with Yvonne John, Lauren DeVere and Sarah Lawrence. 
• I saw this story on the news recently and searched out an online version I could share here:  two Halifax universities are sharing a Mi'kmaq "auntie-in-residence" whose role is to help Indigenous students to navigate campus life. The "auntie" they hired is just 28 years old -- obviously, she may still have children someday herself. Still, as a proud auntie, I was kind of tickled by the idea :)  and also by the fact that she pointed out, in her TV interview, that the focus is often on moms & grandmas while the special role aunties can play is often overlooked. Yes!  
• From Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study:  "You Don't Need To Get Married or Have a Kid To Have a Party." (The comments are great.)  Here's how it starts:  

When I was in the my late 20s and through my 30s, I spent a lot of money on engagement gifts, wedding gifts, baby showers, and baby “sprinkles.” I spent money on bridesmaids dresses and bachelorette parties and traveling to weddings and staying at the wedding and getting home from the wedding. I did it to celebrate my closest friends, and I’d do it again.

As it became clearer to me that I wouldn’t have those sorts of socially-validated celebrations in my own life, I remember feeling a sort of soft, very background, very subdued form of resentment. Not directed at anyone in particular, but at the way we’ve organized our celebrations towards a very narrow slice of “achievement.”

• Last week, I mentioned that Frank Bruni of the New York Times had challenged two recent NYT articles about living & aging alone in his subscriber newsletter (which took the view that this is not a good or desirable thing). His response was titled: "I Live Alone. Really, I’m Not That Pathetic."  This week, he continued: 

Last week I also explored the pleasures of living alone, and that clearly struck a chord: Hundreds of you chimed in to say that you, too, bristle at the assumptions that others make about our households of one. Several of you used a word that I wish I had: solitude. That’s what we have and what we relish and what sometimes gets mistaken for loneliness or mislabeled as isolation.

Several of you also brought up an adjacent misimpression: that people without children failed in their attempts to have them, are failing everybody else or are somehow incomplete. Or can’t process the world in the same deeply feeling, exquisitely concerned way that parents do. One reader noted how common — and how grating — it is when television news journalists weigh in after the latest school shooting with some version of the statement, “As a parent, I really understand this.”

We childless people really understand it, too, because while we don’t have offspring, we have hearts and brains. We have souls and consciences. We care about a world beyond ourselves, just as parents do, and we care about the future, even if we won’t have direct descendants in it.

To that end, I’ve never noticed some stark dividing line between how parents (or grandparents) and childless people vote, with the former group demonstrating greater concern for a safe, clean, civil society. People aren’t reducible that way. We’re maddeningly and gloriously complicated, and we’d do better by one another to hold tight to that thought.

    (Beware the comments!)  

Odds & ends

• This morning, we found out (via BIL) that LGN's other grandma (Older Nephew's MIL/his wife's mom) has covid. We saw her 8 days earlier (Friday, Dec. 2nd) when all of us went to watch LGN get his photo taken with Santa, and then had lunch together afterwards. (She & I sat directly across the table from each other.) Masks were removed at the restaurant (obviously), hugs were exchanged. 
• So far, we're both feeling fine (and 8 days later, I *think* we should be in the clear...) -- and obviously, she could have picked up and developed the virus somewhere else, after she saw us -- but it's yet another unnervingly close call, with one week to go before we travel to see my family.  We rarely let down our guard and unmask in public/non-family settings -- but it seems like every time we have, someone later gets sick! (at least three times now that I can think of, including twice within the last few weeks...!).  
• I posted on Dec. 5th that "After almost a month of smooth sailing, Bloglovin' is out again this morning (eyeroll & SIGH...)."  It had miraculously revived itself again the following day -- but the next morning (Dec. 7th), it was out again. Back again on Dec. 8th (yay!), out again on Dec. 9th (seriously?!). It's been out since then.  Make up your mind, Bloglovin...!  
• Hear, hear!  An article in a British newspaper on one of my favourite soapbox subjects at this time of year:  "As a childless woman, I’m fed up of people treating Christmas as a kids’ holiday."  (Beware the comments.) 
• Thanks to Stephanie Phillips of World Childless Week for flagging this article in a recent WCW newsletter, about a mom who wants help with her three kids and won't take "no" for an answer from a childless/free friend. (With "friends" like these...??)  
• I recently flagged two articles from the New York Times about aging alone.  Frank Bruni, a former NYT columnist -- 58 years old and single -- takes issue with the image the articles reinforce, and provides an alternate perspective: "I Live Alone. Really, I’m Not That Pathetic." Quote: 

Both articles were important. They rightly expressed concern for older Americans who don’t have the resources or the kind of extended family that I do. They’re at risk. We should attend to that.  

 

But the articles nonetheless reminded me that in an era that exhorts everyone to respect the full range of human identity and expression, there can still be a whiff of stigma to living uncoupled in a household of one. There’s puzzlement over it, pity for it. Surely, you didn’t choose this. Possibly, you brought it on yourself.

...For many people, yes, living alone is a present or incipient danger. For many others, it’s bliss.

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

(Not a "micro" post this week, but it's what I've got...!)  :) 

• Friday morning, we drove with BIL & SIL to a nearby mall to meet up with Older Nephew, his wife and her mother, and watch Little Great-Nephew have his photo taken with Santa! I will admit I got a bit teary as I watched (while snapping photos madly with my own cellphone camera!) -- but I would not have missed it for the world!! Santa was just wonderful with him -- it was the same Santa LGN had his photo taken with when he was just a few weeks old, that last pre-pandemic Christmas (2019) -- and as we left, I heard him chuckling and saying "Isn't he cute?" to one of the elf assistants/photographers. ;) (Hey, he's Santa!  He should know, right??  lol)  
• No, we didn't get our photo taken too, lol. LGN had an appointment, and there were other families waiting, so I didn't ask if they could squeeze us in too. It was LGN's day! Maybe another time!  :)  
• We thought we arrived in plenty of time -- it was just before 10:30 a.m., and LGN's appointment was for 10:45. BIL told us that Santa was at the one end of the mall, so that's where we parked.  This was at the other end of the mall from where I knew Santa had always been, pre-pandemic -- but hey, a lot of things have changed since then, right?  
• But then, as we were walking in, Older Nephew texted SIL that they -- and Santa -- were near Entrance #X... on the opposite end of the mall. (In other words, right where he's always been!  lol)  This is a HUGE mall -- the full circuit around it is 1.7 km, or 0.85 km from one end to the other. That's approximately half a mile -- and we had less than 15 minutes to get there!  We probably would have been better off going back to the car & driving around to the right entrance, but we wound up speed walking all the way there, arriving just in time!  (Dh, SIL & I were all wearing masks, too -- and none of us are spring chickens...!)  
• Afterward, we walked back down to the other end of the mall again (near where we had parked) -- at a more leisurely pace this time, lol -- stopping in the Lego store along the way. "HOLY COW!"  exclaimed LGN, dazzled by all the Lego -- especially the models of the Star Wars Deathstar and Roman Coliseum on display!    
• We all wound up going for lunch together at a restaurant within the mall before we headed back home.  
• This was the first time dh & I ate in a restaurant since just before the pandemic was declared in March 2020! ( = 2 years, 8 months!)  
• Not only that -- it was the EXACT SAME RESTAURANT where we'd had that last pre-pandemic dinner out -- with BIL, SIL, Older Nephew, his wife and LGN, who was then about 3-4 months old. How's that for symmetry??  
• Thankfully, the restaurant was not too crowded (about half full, maybe less) and we were in a section with only two or three other tables nearby, near the door ( = at least some fresh air coming in now & then). I kept my mask on until our drinks arrived, and put it back on again after our plates were cleared. 
• As mask-wearers, we were definitely in a small minority of people at the mall that morning -- although I was happy to see that it was (surprisingly, for a Friday, in December, 3 weeks from Christmas) not yet that crowded overall. 
• I splurged (hmmm, seems like I've been doing a lot of that lately...!) and bought an Aranet4 CO2 air quality monitor which Turia recommended in her blog a few months ago.  (It was delivered while we were out at the mall on Friday -- too bad we didn't get it before, because it would have been interesting to have it on hand!)  I'm planning to take it with us on the airplane when we travel in a few weeks' time. Till then, it's sitting on the kitchen counter beside our little hygrometer (which reads the humidity levels -- although the Aranet tracks that too!).  :)  
• Between the Aranet4 and the Dyson purifier/humidifier we got a few weeks ago, it's been fun monitoring all the data and watching the humidity and air quality numbers go up and down during the day, and how they change if, say, we run the bathroom fan or the essential oils diffuser, or make toast...!  (What can I say, I am my father's daughter -- my dad always did love a cool gadget...!  lol) 
• Speaking of the Dyson, I am very happy we got one. I love using the app, I like how you can adjust the settings for the purifying fan speed and target humidity, I love getting notifications when the water tank runs out, and I love how easy it is to refill! (Cleaning also sounds pretty easy to do, although I haven't yet had to do that.)   
• After almost a month of smooth sailing, Bloglovin' is out again this morning (eyeroll & SIGH...).  
• I recently mentioned that Margaret Atwood is now writing on Substack! A couple of her recent posts have been absolutely priceless -- albeit perhaps best appreciated by citizens of Toronto and/or Ontario...!  ;)  She will also be writing about... writing! 
• Jake Gyllenhaal, the actor, has written a children's book! Click on over -- you'll want to see the subject and why he wrote it. :)  Thank you, Jake!  Putting this on my to-buy list (for Little Great-Nephew -- and our new great-nephew or great-niece!) when it comes out next September (2023)! 
• I was gutted when I heard about the death of Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac this past week.  :(  I couldn't believe she was 79!!  (In her 70s, yes -- but 79??)  Everyone raves about Stevie Nicks, and yes, she's great, but I always thought Christine McVie was amazing and never quite got her full dues by comparison (although the obituaries have been effusive).  
• I bought "Rumours" when I was in high school (I think I paid something like $4.99 for it, at the Bay in Winnipeg)(and several other FMac albums after that) -- I played it constantly for years, and I still play it now & then (the CD version, now that Older Nephew has all my vinyl, lol). "Songbird," Christine's signature song, from that album, is one of my all-time favourite songs. (Mick Fleetwood has said he wants it played at his funeral.) I never got to see FMac in concert, but apparently it was the standard closing encore number -- just her and her piano, and that beautiful, crystalline voice. Sheer perfection. (Her maiden name was Christine Perfect, by the way...!)
• And of course, she was "one of us" (Stevie Nicks too) -- i.e., childless, not entirely by choice. There's a quote that was circulating widely in the CNBC community this past week, in which she said, "There were never any children [for me]. There was always a career in the way. It was a case of one or the other, and Stevie would say the same. The lads went off and had children but for Stevie and I it was a bit difficult to do that. So that was never able to happen. And I never found the right man. Not through want of trying." 
• About a week earlier, I was also sad to hear that Irene Cara died at the too-young age of 63 -- also apparently childless. I loved the movie "Fame" (which she starred in), and while I know most people remember her for the title song (as well as "What a Feeling" from "Flashdance"),  my personal favourite from that movie is "Out Here on My Own," which was written by the late, great (also childless) pop singer from the 1960s, Lesley Gore.  :)  
• The New York Times had an article recently about the growing numbers of aging Americans (baby boomers & Gen-Xers = ME!  lol) who are living alone, and the mismatch between their needs and available housing. Some of the people in the article are parents, but some are not, and the issue of aging without children is specifically mentioned (albeit not elaborated on in any significant way). It's the first time I can remember reading about this issue in a mainstream North American publication! and it's nice to see it's getting some attention!  
• And... a SECOND NYT article on the same subject!! (specifically focused on "kinless" seniors). (Someone please pinch me, lol.)  I think this one is even better than the one above, to be honest. As I said, SO nice to see this issue finally getting some attention!!  
• Speaking of aging:  I listened in to a New Legacy Radio podcast recently, live, where Christine Erickson talked with Patricia (Trish) Faulks (of the blog "Just Me & Lilley") about "Embracing Solo Aging While Confronting Pronatalism and Ageism." You can listen in on the website and on most podcast platforms. (Christine has a new or repeat episode on a childless/free-related topic every Tuesday at 1 p.m. Eastern time.) 
• Jody Day of Gateway Women appeared on a popular lunchtime program on BBC Radio 2 on Friday, Dec. 2nd to discuss Jennifer Aniston. unsuccessful fertility treatments and involuntary childlessness, followed by a call-in segment with some great callers. :)  She's the first guest, starting at about 1:06 into the program. You can listen via the link until the end of December. 
• More Jennifer Aniston, including the voices of other IVF survivors who didn't get their "miracle babies": this time from the Huffington Post. Some great quotes here... and I particularly liked this observation in the narrative: 

If the perfect girl beamed into our televisions via nonstop syndication couldn’t have a baby, then, truly, it could happen to anyone. And if she picked up the pieces of that heartbreak and went on to have a successful career and a fulfilling life — what might that mean for the rest of us?

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

Odds & ends

• Another reason I'm glad I'm not an American: elections every two years -- yikes!!  Granted, not every position is up for re-election every two years -- albeit some are -- but still...! As a voter, I think elections every two years (and for so many positions -- I must admit, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of elected judges and other law officials...!) would be horribly stressful -- it's stressful enough watching from across the border (and being deluged with a relentless stream of ads on TV that don't even apply to us and that we can do nothing about), lol!  Our own system, with elections every 4-5 years on average (unless you're in a minority government situation, in which case they could happen earlier), is bad enough, lol.  ;)  
• It's disappointing that some right-wing politicians and policies were not more thoroughly repudiated -- and I guess we'll see how things play out over the next two years -- but hey, overall, the results could have been much, much worse...
• Since the time change this past weekend, it's light outside earlier in the morning again -- but it's dark by about 5:30 p.m. now.  Sigh... :(   (And it will keep getting darker, earlier, until the winter solstice in mid-December.)  
• I know it would get keep getting darker, earlier, at this time of year, regardless of whether the time changed as usual or whether it stayed the same all year long -- but it's the abruptness of the change, that sudden plunge into late afternoon darkness, that makes it so hard to deal with, I think...!  
• Bloglovin' is back (again) this morning! (For how long, who knows?? But I'll enjoy it while I can...!) 
• There was a great post in Carolyn Hax's advice column from the Washington Post last weekend from "the world's greatest aunt" who went through some tough times but is now happy with her childless, single life and has no desire to date -- and yet is constantly nagged by friends who think she has a unhealthy fear of commitment and want to introduce her to men, etc.  I love Carolyn's response (and the last line in particular, lol). It's obviously relevant to childless singles -- but also, I think, to just generally having our decisions (to stop ttc, to not adopt, etc.) and childless lives generally questioned and challenged by others. 
• From Medium:  Ali Hall, echoing a recent viral piece by Yael Wolfe:  "The Modern-Day Twist on “The Village” To Promote Equitability for All:  Regardless of our parental or relationship status, we all need our village." Yes! Sample passage: 

...parents are not the only sector to suffer from the diminished social infrastructure.

...There’s a latent expectation in some that those who are not parents should serve those who are parents. As if “The Village” is a trust fund that you suddenly have access to once you have a child.

This sense of entitlement is missing the whole point of “The Village.” For a village to function, it requires us all to be active members as soon as we can comprehend the workings of a community.

It takes time to build communities. They are an investment of love and support. A conglomerate of skills and interests. Expecting a village to present itself on command indicates a lack of personal contribution. I can’t help but wonder whether those who shout the loudest for a village have ever served as a villager.

If we want the benefits of a village, we must also be a villager.

• She's singing my song!:  I loved Anne Helen Petersen's recent piece in her Culture Study newsletter on Substack about the phenomenon of "sprawling holidays," or holiday inflation. (Visits from the St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun, anyone?? -- definitely not a "thing" when I was growing up...!)  Some great conversation in the comments, too!  (One theory re: the new popularity of the leprechaun is that March is the least Instagrammable month... I think there may be something to that...!) 
• I was reminded of this post I wrote, 9 years ago now (!), about the Elf on the Shelf, as well as the pieces that informed it, from Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon, and Rage Against the Minivan (this piece in particular -- but I also found this one and this one). 
• A lot of what Petersen has to say is filtered through the lens of parents & children (she herself is childfree by choice), but there's a lot of great social commentary -- including a nod to pronatalism and those of us who don't have kids [emphasis mine]:  

Performing Christmas became a way to maintain middle-class domestic cohesion — to broadcast to your immediate and extended family and the whole block that we’ve got this on lock. (So many of the current attributes of Christmas reinforce the middle-class American family ideal: the primary signifiers [the tree, the visible lights] are “best” on display in the single-family dwelling; you can only get a (sizeable) tree with a car and someone capable of heaving it around. The “magic” of Christmas depends on the presence of children to experience it alongside; to spend Christmas alone is framed as some sort of unspeakable sadness).

• Less than 40 days (!) until we head "home" to my family for Christmas holidays... eeeeekkkkk..... 
• We finally booked our plane tickets about a week ago. Holy cow, they were a whole lot more expensive than our flights last  month, and probably the most we've paid to fly west in quite a while. It would probably be cheaper for us to fly to Florida or Mexico...!  (And meantime, the service just keeps getting worse and worse...!)  Yikes!  

Weekend odds & ends

• It was 24C (75F)/27C (80F) humidex today!!!  
• IT IS NOVEMBER.  IN CANADA!
• I am not complaining -- I am not anxious for days on end of sub-zero temperatures just yet...!  
• BUT!  THIS IS NOT NORMAL!!!  :(   
• We drove out to our old community this (Saturday) morning for our flu and bivalent covid booster shots at the vaccine clinic set up by our family doctor's office -- one in each arm. We had appointments, but by the time the clinic opened at 10, there were at least 30 people waiting in line outside -- a marked contrast to when we got our fourth shots six months ago, and were the only two people there! Nevertheless, we were there early, and in & out relatively quickly. 
• I had booked us for Moderna, since that's what we had last time, but the nurse recommended Pfizer for variety. (Last time we'd requested Pfizer and Moderna was recommended!)  Whatever -- I just want a shot!  :)  We've now had two each of Pfizer and Moderna, along with our very first shot of AstraZeneca (which was the only shot we could get at the time). 
• Both of us have slightly sore arms and we've been tired/fatigued all day (dh napped all afternoon), but otherwise, so far, so good.  
• BIL & SIL were surprised earlier this week when they mentioned Little Great-Nephew's upcoming 3rd (!!) birthday party (with just the family present) -- and realized Older Nephew hadn't yet extended an invitation to us. I KNEW we would be invited, eventually (Older Nephew has never been known for his promptness, lol) -- but it still kind of gives you pause and drags up those old feelings of "otherness" and exclusion and being left outside the "in" crowd (which WAY predate infertility and pregnancy loss and permanent childlessness, going back to my childhood, when I was frequently the new kid in town, on the fringe of things...). 
• BIL assured dh we were invited, adding, "You're almost like family!"  "Ummm, hello, we ARE family!!"  dh reminded him. (Yes, next-tier, to be sure, but still...! -- our family is not all that large...!)(Both of us laughed...  you have to know BIL... his sentences don't always come out the way he intended...!  But I'm glad dh spoke up!) 
• In the "it was fun while it lasted" category:  Bloglovin has been behaving BEAUTIFULLY ever since I posted this on Sept. 23rd. It's been a good six weeks... BUT... Thursday morning (Nov. 3rd), I checked the Bloglovin app on my phone and there were suspiciously fewer posts than normal... went onto my laptop later that afternoon and sure enough, there it was: "Sorry, this page isn't available." And it hasn't been available since then. Sigh... 
• The penultimate (#9) episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" this season aired here on Wednesday night... season 5 finale next week! 
• One thing that's bothered me about this and other episodes this season is the vehement anti-Americanism/anti-refugee demonstrations by the people of Toronto (with gun violence at the very end of this episode). Okay, I realize this is fiction -- and who knows how Toronto/Canada would react in a world where we had Gilead on our doorstep and thousands of Americans flooding our borders??  And it's true that not everyone in Toronto or in Canada as a whole welcomes refugees (or Americans, for that matter) with open arms right now as it is. (As in the show -- and as last winter's protests/occupations of Ottawa and several other cities and border crossings demonstrated -- there is, unfortunately, a segment of the population that would welcome more Gilead in Canada -- perish the thought...!)  
• But we welcomed tens of thousands of Americans (draft dodgers from the Vietnam War) back in the 1960s and 1970s -- many of whom stayed and made Canada their home, even after they were granted amnesty -- and for decades, refugees from other parts of the world have been overwhelmingly welcomed by the vast majority of the population here. The screaming, chanting crowds, the harshly worded signs on display in the show... it's NOT the Canada or the Toronto I recognize. (I find it kind of offensive, to be honest -- to think that the producers & writers would think Canada/Canadians would be like that...! -- even fictional Canadians!) 

Odds & ends & funerals for the weekend

• Last Friday, dh's aunt (his mom's sister) died at the age of 89. (I mentioned it in my #MicroblogMondays post earlier this week.) 
• I was still dealing with my cold (I'm doing better, but not 100 per cent yet), and of course I don't want to come down with anything worse before we head west to see my family in two weeks' time... so we took our own car to the afternoon visitation on Tuesday (even though we often go to these things together with BIL & SIL), and I kept my N-95 mask on almost the entire time. (I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who also wore masks... nowhere near all who came, of course, but more than I had anticipated.)  
• There was an evening session as well, and many of the cousins who came to the afternoon session stayed on for that -- heading over to a nearby restaurant to eat in between. They invited us to come along, and if these were normal times, we would have gladly said yes. I miss getting together with them. But we still haven't eaten in a restaurant since March 2020, and as I said, I'm trying to be extra-cautious right now before our trip west -- so we sent our regrets and headed home. We saw them all again (plus the cousins who came to the evening visitation) the next morning at the funeral mass & committal. (We wore masks then too.) 
• SIL called us from their car as we were driving home from the funeral -- she & BIL, their aunt, her daughter and son-in-law were all going out for lunch at a restaurant near our condo building, and did we want to come? Again, regretfully, we said thanks  no thanks. It was nice to be asked, even though I'm pretty sure they knew we'd say no...! 
• Dh's cousin gave a lovely eulogy... which of course made me wonder: who (if anyone) will eulogize me when I'm gone? (And what will they say??  lol)  
• And now, we get to do it all over again...!  :(  This morning, we had a text (not unexpected) from dh's cousin:  HER mother died, age 91. We are just waiting to hear about the arrangements. 
• This aunt was dh's mother's sister-in-law (married to her oldest brother), and had been living at the same seniors residence as the other aunt for the past several years. She was in good health until just recently, and spent the last few weeks in hospice/palliative care, where she was still asking for Tim Hortons "iced caps" (iced cappucinos) almost to the very end. Her daughter texted another cousin while we were all at the funeral home for the other aunt, saying the priest had been called to give last rites, so we knew the end was near. This aunt said she hoped she & the other aunt would "go hand in hand," and she pretty much got her wish. 
• Dh lived at their house for the first few years of his life, before his dad bought their own house, a few blocks away, in the Greektown area of Toronto. All the relatives lived near each other in those days, but this family was the closest to them, geographically, and he & BIL were particularly close to the two kids -- the daughter is two years older than dh, and the son is the same age as BIL. (He's referred to elsewhere in this blog as "Cousin/Neighbour" -- he lived (and still lives) a few blocks from us in our old community.)  
• I was able to wear my dressy capris and sandals to the first aunt's funeral... but I think this one will have to be long pants, shoes & socks! Right on cue on the first day of fall, the weather turned cooler, and since then, it's gotten even chillier! 
• I know a lot of people who are positively giddy over the advent of fall this week. I like fall too -- the end of the extreme heat & humidity, the beautiful fall colours (Ontario is one of the best places in the world to see them, I think!) -- but it's a hard/sad time of year for me too. Essentially, it's a season when everything starts to die -- plants, tree leaves, the old year, the light (darkness is already coming way too early for my liking). And way too many people I love have died at this time of year too. 
• Case in point: see above. :(  
• Last year at this time, dh's cousin's brother-in-law died in early October -- followed by his brother/her husband, a day later (!!) and then their mother/her MIL, with a month after them. Yikes!!  
• My grandparents both died in October, almost a year to the day apart from each other -- Grandpa in 1998, Grandma in 1999. And Grandpa died just a few days after I had returned to work after Katie's stillbirth. 
• (*CLUNK!!*) -- That was me, keeling over in shock (lol), after Infertile Phoenix recently pointed her readers to an article on CNN with the message that it's OK to quit doing things -- AND!! quitting infertility treatment is used as one of the examples!!!  
• I've read articles before with the same message (and they're tagged on this blog as "the Q word," lol), but I don't think I have EVER seen a mainstream media article supporting the idea that it's OK to quit infertility treatments. Wow!!     
• (*CLUNK!!* -- again! lol) I have Bloglovin' on my opening set of tabs, even though (apart from one brief blip) it hasn't been working/up for a full month -- since Aug. 23rd (!). Lo and behold, there it was when I turned on my laptop this afternoon!!  I'm enjoying it while it lasts....!