"Dear Monica Lewinsky" by Julia Langbein

If you were old enough to pay attention to the news in the late 1990s, you'll know who Monica Lewinsky is. She's the young White House intern whose dalliance with then-U.S. President Bill Clinton -- and his lies about it to Congress -- led to his impeachment in December 1998. (He was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999.)  The scandal came to light in January 1998, and led to Lewinsky testifying before a grand jury in August 1998. Clinton admitted to the relationship in a televised address on Aug. 17th that year. 

Needless to say, while I was certainly aware of what was happening south of the border (you couldn't NOT know about it...!), I was rather preoccupied with (ahem) other matters in 1998, and August 1998 in particular. I don't remember having strong feelings about Lewinsky one way or another at the time, but when she began speaking out about the experience some years later, as an older and wiser woman, I found her to be a sympathetic figure.  

Now 53 years old, she's never married or had children. She advocates for victims of bullying, harassment and public shaming, and hosts a podcast called "Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky," focusing on personal stories of resilience and identity.

She's also now the title figure in a recently published novel called "Dear Monica Lewinsky" by Julia Langbein.  (I was curious whether Lewinsky has made any comment on the book;  so far as I can tell, she has not, but the author did send her a copy before it was published.)   

Jean Dornan spent six weeks during the summer of 1998 in France on a work-study program, documenting medieval French churches -- and pursuing a highly inappropriate relationship with her professor, David Harwell. Now 45 years old, married and still dealing with the impact that summer had on her life, Jean is startled to receive an invitation from David to attend his retirement party. She's even more startled when, looking at her old diaries from that summer, she realizes this pivotal relationship in her life happened at the exact same time that a very public scandal was unfolding, involving a very similar relationship between President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Pondering the parallels in their stories, she finds herself calling on Monica, as if she were a saint, begging her forgiveness for dismissing her and for not seeing the commonalities between them.  

Lo and behold, "Saint Monica" appears to Jean (in the bathroom of a church in Lower Manhattan, no less!). Together, they look back on that summer, what happened to Jean and the impact it's had on her life since then (interrupted by occasional side comments between the two of them). (Rather irreverent) stories of real female martyr/saints are also interspersed between chapters.  

I enjoyed this book, for the most part.  I learned a lot about (among other things) the architecture of medieval French churches, how lust-filled nuns changed the Catholic church (!)  ;)  and the depressingly similar stories of female martyr saints (a lot of suffering at the hands of the patriarchy.... plus ca change...).  ;)  There's a lot of wry humour. 

However, the section covering what happened during the summer of 1998 in France is long and leisurely -- Jean and David don't even KISS until we're well into both the term and the book! (The effect on the reader is pent-up anticipation, much like Jean's pent-up desire.)  Jean is not always a likeable character, particularly in her younger "Ruthless Jean" incarnation, and the irreverent/snarky tone (particularly regarding religious matters) might rub some readers the wrong way. Like Monica, she deliberately flirts with an older married man and revels in the attention he gives her.  

And yet -- I can remember being the same age, plotting how to attract the attention of the boy(s) I liked, maneuvering to be in the same places at the same times he was -- and the heady feeling of being noticed and desired (and desiring in return)(especially at university, after being ignored by boys through most of my teen years). Unlike Monica and Jean, I didn't have any "inappropriate" relationships with older men (and thank goodness for that...!) -- but I was equally as naive and inexperienced as they were -- and (of course!) there were encounters and relationships (or aspects of them) and behaviour (on my part and theirs), that makes me wince to remember, where I was treated badly by a guy, or wish I had done things differently.   

But that's all part of growing up and learning from our mistakes, isn't it? Which is part of what Monica helps Jean to realize. (We all do dumb things when we were younger -- but most of us don't have to deal with it in public, as Monica did...! -- thank goodness...!).  

The last chapter is kind of bonkers. :) (But cathartic too.)  

A solid 3.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded up (after some debate) to 4 on Goodreads.   

CNBC notes:  Jean, like Monica, is childless.  

This was Book #25 read to date in 2026 (and Book #7 (!) finished in August), bringing me to 63% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the first time in a LONG time!!) ON TRACK to meet my goal!!  :)  (For the moment, anyway...!  ;)  )  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."  

Bicentennial memories

I was 15 years old during in the summer of 1976. I'm Canadian, but my mother was American, and I spent a lot of time in Minnesota with my grandparents and extended family during the holidays -- especially the summertime -- every summer (until I was 17 and got a part-time summer job that cut into my traditional lazy summers,  anyway). In 1974, we'd moved to a town that was closer to the border and to where my grandparents lived -- an easy drive for a weekend's visit -- so we were able to spend a lot more time there than we had in the past. 

So I was in the U.S. a fair bit during the two years leading up to U.S. Bicentennial celebrations, as well as on/around July 4, 1976, itself.  My memories from 50 (!!) years ago are not as sharp as they once were, but I do have some from that time. 

You couldn't NOT notice what was going on!  There was a huge buildup in the years, months and weeks ahead of July 1976 -- including two-plus years' worth of Bicentennial Minutes -- brief snippets of American Revolutionary history, broadcast nightly on the CBS TV network, narrated by CBS actors.  You can watch some of them on YouTube! (of course!)  Moving closer to the border meant we could pull in some U.S. TV stations with our rotary antenna (cable came to our town a few years later) -- CBS was a little out of our range (although we could sometimes pick up a fuzzy picture on an especially clear night, or after a thunderstorm), but there was plenty of other Bicentennial-related content on the ABC and NBC affiliates we could pick up. I think it's safe to say that Canadian kids of my generation grew up knowing more about American historical events/mythology and figures from watching American TV than we did about our own country's story.   

Norman Rockwell, the artist whose work is synonymous with "Americana," was from New England, but I used to see his paintings and immediately think of my mom's small hometown in Minnesota (population about 1,400, back then).  It was that kind of place and that kind of vibe.  As part of its Bicentennial celebrations, the town organized a huge all-school reunion -- which meant that, even more than usual, my grandmother's little house was full of neighbours, old friends and relatives who had come "home" for the occasion, dropping by to visit. Grandma always had a pot of coffee percolating on the gas stove, home-baked goodies in the pantry, and a warm welcome for everyone who came through the door. The screened-in back porch, covered in Virginia creeper, was always full of people, sitting and chatting and laughing. It wasn't a big porch, but I'm always amazed when I think of how many people we were able to pack in there!  

On the 4th of July itself, we all went downtown to watch a big parade and, later that evening, drove to another nearby town to watch fireworks. In between, we hand-cranked homemade ice cream on the screened-in back porch, in an old-fashioned ice-cream making tub (packed with ice and rock salt), which we ate with fresh local strawberries. I remember my uncle and cousins setting off their own fireworks in the field behind Grandma's house, and lighting sparklers in the back yard, although I'm not sure if those memories are from Bicentennial 4th or other Fourth of Julys, growing up. 

There were lots of cousins and extended family in the area at that time -- the ones who lived there then, and others who were visiting -- and we drove to my great-aunt's house, about about an hour away, for a barbecue/mini-reunion with relatives from my grandmother's side of the family.  Those present included our hostess (Grandma's sister-in-law, divorced from Grandma's brother, but still close to everyone in the family), her son (Mom's cousin, 22 years old at the time), who lived with her, and her daughter, who lived/lives in California, was there with her husband and two kids; my parents, grandparents & sister;  my uncle, his wife and my two cousins; another great-aunt (Grandma's older sister), her daughter (another cousin of Mom's, who was also my godmother) and her two daughters. Years later, the California cousin's husband sent me some digitized photos from that day, including a group photo of all the kids, and another of me, my sister and the next two oldest girl cousins, sitting in one of the cars, windows open, listening to music on the radio (and running down the car battery, no doubt...!) and reading Tiger Beat magazine. :)  

All the kids in those photos are now in their late 50s and early/mid-60s. (I am the oldest cousin of my generation on that side of the family. Interestingly, only three of the eight of us who were there that day have kids.) Of the adults in the photos, my grandparents, my two great-aunts, my mom, her brother (my uncle), their then-22-year-old cousin and the California cousin's husband who sent me the photos, are gone. Just two of my mom's cousins who were there, as well as my uncle's wife and my dad, are still with us today.  

Maybe it's the loss and the absence of these wonderful people. Maybe it's the charged political atmosphere today (although 1976 wasn't too far removed from the turmoil of Watergate and Vietnam, etc.).  Maybe it's because I haven't been to the States in several years, and haven't been able to absorb the atmosphere for myself. Maybe there just doesn't seem to be as much hoopla, that I've noticed from the other side of the border, anyway. Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic, fuelled by so many reminders of the past while helping my sister clear out our parents' house recently.  Maybe I'm just getting older, and looking back through rose-coloured glasses.  

But I'm not feeling the same sense of anticipation and excitement about tomorrow's milestone holiday, from where I sit across the border, or from my family & friends there...  

I miss them all. 

(SOME of the) Things I found while helping to empty out my parents' house

My parents were married for more than 65 years, and lived in the house that just sold (and is closing at the end of this month) for 42 years. During that time, they also helped clear a couple of other people's houses (and accumulated some stuff from those places) -- most notably the house my mom grew up in, which was built by her grandparents/my great-grandparents after their marriage in 1904, and bulldozed in early 1998. (My grandparents had moved in the early 1980s, to an apartment and later to the care home in town, but there was still a lot of stuff left in the house until just a few years before it was torn down.). 

Neither my mom, nor my grandmother, were very good about throwing things away (to put it mildly...). In a nutshell, there was (and still is) a LOT of STUFF to go through!  My sister & I started going through closets while I was still there in December/January, and she has continued the work over the past few months (mostly on weekends, because she's still working and lives about an hour away). By the time I got there a few weeks ago, the pile of boxes in the closet assigned to me to go through had grown quite a bit since my sister sent me the photo I used in this post) -- and of course there were still other closets and cupboards to empty too. 

Some of the stuff was mine. (I'm a bit of a packrat too -- although moving to and living in a condo has forced me to do better...! And suffice to say, I would not want to leave a similar amount of stuff behind for the nephews to go through, after I've gone...!)  My sister & I have done two or three weed-outs of our stuff at Mom & Dad's in the past, but there was still a LOT there that needed to be sorted through and disposed of. Somewhat miraculously, I managed to pare down what was there enough to fit into one box (after filling a suitcase to take home with me -- also miraculously, it did NOT exceed the airline's weight limit!!).  My sister and her partner have agreed to keep the box for me for one year. I figure I'll be heading back in July and likely again at Christmastime, and should be able to bring what's left home with me over the next two or three visits.    

It was physically tiring work, but emotionally exhausting too. (Kleenex was required.)  All these things, saved and treasured by my mom & grandmother (and great-grandmother) for all these years... and now it was up to my sister & me (both childless -- the buck stopped with us) to decide what the heck to do with it all.  

We sorted things into several different piles:  

• keep (for Dad's apartment, my sister or me, or possibly PND), 
• ask our cousins if they want it (not likely, as they just finished emptying out THEIR parents' & other grandparents' houses!), 
• recycle, 
• take to the local thrift store,
• take to the local library (books),
• possibly sell? (PND's dad sells vintage stuff through his eBay store -- he got some jaw-dropping prices for our old Barbie dolls and their clothes!). 
• I also set aside a few things I thought should be offered to the museum in the Minnesotan county where my mom's family is from.  (Not sure how or when we can get things to them, since neither my sister nor I are anxious to cross the border anytime soon...)
• Sadly, many of the things we found had to be tossed -- but I did take a lot of photos of some of the more interesting or memorable items. 

Among the things we found:  

• Tchotchkes upon tchotchkes... decorations for all seasons! (My sister is keeping some of the Christmas decorations for now, since Dad has expressed an interest in having a small tree in his apartment.)  
• At least four or five (mostly) complete sets of dishes, some of which my dad & sister took. The rest went to the thrift store.  
• Drinking glasses (some of them chipped and cracked -- we gleefully tossed those -- we'd been trying to get our mom to throw them out for years!!).  And lots of coffee mugs.  We took the ones that get used the most over to Dad's apartment.  
• We found an entire set of vintage early 1960s highball glasses that I dimly remember from my childhood, wrapped in newspaper and packed away in a box in the garage. I don't think it had been opened since Mom & Dad moved in, 42 years ago. When we realized what was in the box, we closed it up again and set it aside to go straight to the local thrift store.  
• An entire box (plus an entire drawer) filled with vintage recipe books that belonged to both our Mom and Grandma, as well as their boxes of recipe cards and piles of recipes written on random pieces of paper. My sister set most of these aside to go through later. 
• (There was also a stack of recipes in our great-grandmother's handwriting -- most of them in pencil and barely readable. Sadly, most of these got tossed.)  
• More empty plastic margarine tubs and casserole dishes than anyone will ever have use for.   
• Piles of towels and sheets, worn threadbare -- as well as some that were like new and barely or never used?? 
• What seemed to be every single greeting card my grandmother ever received, dating back to at least the 1940s. (Grandma, I love you, but seriously??)  
• Umpteen vintage postcards, some of them signed (some by family members), but many of them blank. (These may ultimately get tossed, but my sister is going to look into whether they're worth anything.) 
• Boxes & boxes and piles & piles of old photos (both our family's and Grandma's), dating back to the late 1800s. Some identified or identifiable, but many sadly not. (My sister is going to arrange to have them scanned, or as many as possible, but says she can't keep all the originals, which makes me cringe.)  
• Tax receipts and receipts from local businesses in my mom's/grandmother's hometown, dating back to the early 1900s, including some for my great-great grandmother's house.  (Those got tossed.) 
• My grandmother's report cards from school. (She wasn't a particularly good student!) 
• All of MY report cards from school! (I took these home with me.)  
• Letters and paperwork related to my medical history as a child, including a couple of vaccination records. (Ditto above.)  
• A box containing my childhood/teenaged/young adult diaries & journals and assorted other writing. This was a huge relief, as I'd been looking for these on previous visits home and they were not where I thought they should be. There were a lot more notebooks than I'd remembered, and they made a HEAVY pile!  I took some of the earliest (and likely funniest) ones home with me and will bring the rest on future visits. 
• I didn't have time to go through them, but I did glance into a couple (and shook my head -- "He's not worth all the angst, teenage Loribeth!"). 
• I may toss some or all of them eventually, but I would like the chance to look through them more closely first, and I didn't have time to do that then. 
• I did immediately toss one notebook filled with really bad, cringeworthy teenage poetry. Yikes!!  lol  
• I'd tossed most of my school notebooks, etc., during previous clearouts -- but I'd still kept several scrapbooks, projects, etc., plus programs from high school band concerts, drama productions, etc. and many of the essays I'd written.  I think I kept every university essay too.  I tossed almost all of them, but took photos of some of the grades and teacher/prof comments. 
• I had to chuckle/shake my head when I looked at the titles/topics of some of the papers (which sounded strangely familiar/current...!):  Quebec separatism, western Canadian alienation, the rise of the Moral Majority and evangelical churches' influence in U.S. politics, Trudeau's record as prime minister (Pierre, obviously -- Justin was a child at the time!)...  Plus ca change...! 
• On a Grade 12 essay on Shakespeare's Hamlet, my teacher dryly observed, "So much story here to get to the point you wish to make."  I took a photo of that comment -- touchez, Mr. P!  (Dh will tell you things haven't improved over the past 45+ years...!  lol and ouch!) 
• A stack of vintage 1970s Osmonds bubble gum cards. 
• A stack of all the 1970s-era 45s my sister & I owned (separately & jointly, pooling our allowances). 
• LPs: I already had most of mine (and gave them to Older Nephew when we moved into our condo), but there were still plenty owned by my sister, ones we owned jointly (lots of Archies, Partridge Family, Osmonds, Bay City Rollers, K-Tel compilations), Christmas albums (many of them gifts from our grandparents), and ones that were my mom's. 
• Beautiful church certificates from my great-grandparents' 1904 marriage, as well as similar baptism certificates for several of their children, including my grandmother. 
• Guest books for both my grandparents' funerals, my great-uncle's funeral and my parents' 40th wedding anniversary party.  
• Stacks of letters/notes that my grandparents wrote to each other in the years between when they started going out together (late 1920s) until their marriage in 1937. This floored me, because they lived in the SAME SMALL TOWN during almost all of that time!!  Many of them didn't even seem to have been mailed (no envelopes, just names written on the back of carefully folder pages.  I'm guessing they passed notes to each other in the hallways at school, or had them delivered by friends?  
• Another (smaller) pile of letters.... from other girls to my grandfather (!!).  Flirtatious ones too, from what I gathered at a glance. (No time to sit and read all this stuff, even if I wanted to!)  
• This also floored me for two reasons:  (1) My understanding was my grandparents only ever had eyes for each other... apparently not!  (2)  My grandmother actually KEPT these letters from her rivals in her house??!  
• A vintage 1899 single-page "love letter" in beautiful handwriting, from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother (!), apparently in the early days of their courtship. She was leaving on a trip west:  he laments that their acquaintance to date has been too brief, and ends by asking her to "Please do not forget your [name]."  Awww..... 
• A pile of letters and V-mails from my great-uncle (my grandmother's younger brother) from when he served in Italy during World War II, as well as his induction notice, discharge papers and other related paperwork. He never married or had children... lived a quiet, unassuming life with my grandparents after he returned from the war, and worked on a local honey farm as a beekeeper, until his untimely death at age 58.
• Also:  my grandfather's induction notice, and his medical board rejection notice (!). 
• Also:  a stack of my great-grandmother's wartime ration books (!) -- WITH coupons still inside them!!  
• I insisted to my sister that these need to be donated to the county museum. I think I've convinced her.  (I hope.)  I took photos of one of the letters, but I wish I'd had time to read more of them.  
• An entire box filled with letters my mom wrote to my dad (!) and her pre-dad boyfriend/fiance from nursing school (she was there one year before getting married), as well as a diary. Yes, I was curious!  But -- my sister & I decided there are some things you probably shouldn't know about your parents (especially when one of them is still around), and agreed these needed to go, unread. 
• My mother's 1960 wedding dress (short, pale blue) and several vintage 1950s prom/bridesmaid dresses.  The wedding dress sadly had long-established mildew stains on it and had to go, but my sister is going to see if any vintage stores or charities that outfit girls for prom would be interested in the others.  
• MY 1979 graduation dress. (I took a photo of it and put in the pile for the thrift store.) 
• Several adorable children's dresses that my sister and I wore back in the 1960s.
• An adorable little red sweater with white trim and little buttons that look like owl faces, hand-knit for me when I was a toddler/pre-schooler by one of my mom's high school friends. We showed it to PND and she took it home to wash and see if it would fit Little Princess #3.    
• A large box filled with smaller boxes, ALL containing Mom's jewelry (and some of Grandma's too, I think). The vast majority of it was cheap costume stuff.  We didn't have time to go through it, but my sister said she will and she'll set aside anything she thinks I'd be interested in. 
• And... a little wooden chest, that I'm going to post about separately.  

It's not often that I manage to make my sister completely crack up
with laughter, but this photo did the trick!!  🤣
It's from a Grade 1 (1966-67) scrapbook project, titled "Ways Plants Help Us."
The page on the right is captioned "Beauty and shade" 
and apparently is illustrated with a vintage ad for bras and girdles!  
🤣🤣🤣

Odds & ends

• Personal note:  10 years ago today (!), we took possession of the condo where we're now living, and moved out of our home of 26 years, on the other side of the city. (We spent the night at BIL's and moved our stuff in here the next day.) 
• "Boy, that went by fast," commented dh, when I reminded him. No kidding. 
• At the same time, what a lot has happened in those 10 years!:  our nephews' weddings, the arrival of three great-niblings (and a dog!),  the deaths of both FIL & my mom, as well as several other people we've loved, BIL's transplant surgery... 
• I've hashed out the pros & cons of condo living and of moving here several times before on this blog, so I won't go into those topics all over again here. Suffice to say, I'm still not wild about the community itself, but overall, we do love the condo and being closer to family.  :) 
• Mom stuff:  
• I had my first dream about Mom since she died, last week. I don't remember much about it, but she was there. I like it when the people I've loved and lost show up in my dreams. It's like a little visit from them. 
• Dh was looking for a newscast the other night, and landed on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. Which got me teary, because my parents always ate supper late -- partly because Mom insisted on watching "her" news (on ABC -- the network broadcast, followed by the "local" news, from Fargo, ND -- although she almost always fell asleep before the end...!). She really liked David Muir and how he delivered the news as well.  It's the little, unexpected moments like that that catch me off guard and set me off (very similar to after we lost Katie).  
• Vision update:  We went into the city today for follow-up visits with our optometrist, following my opthamologist appointment earlier this month. The opthamologist determined that surgery was not necessary at this point, but there's still a small patch of developing nodules on my left cornea (as well as the small beginnings of a cataract).  Even so, my vision has not changed significantly since I last changed my glasses almost 12 (!) years ago (although both my regular and computer glasses have some scratches on them. The optometrist didn't think the scratches were that bad, though?). 
• The optometrist gave me an updated prescription for my glasses, but suggested it might be worth waiting a while longer to get new ones. We have a number of large expenses right now -- current, upcoming and anticipated:  we just paid our taxes (ouch), paid for flights to visit Dad soon (and will be going there again this summer and at Christmas), possible purchases for his new apartment to fund, as well as subsidizing his rent until he sells the house -- and we still need to purchase a cremation niche or plot at the cemetery for both him and Mom, and inter her ashes at some point -- etc. etc.... So I've decided to hold off on new glasses for a while longer.  (Dh's glasses are about the same age as mine! and he'd like new ones too, but agreed we should both wait.)  We'll be back for checkups again in six months, so we'll see what the situation is then... 

And now a few links to share: 

• Non-ALI/CNBC-related, but I thought it was worth sharing:  Canadian Returnee explains Bill C-18, Meta's response (why I'm unable to see or post news links on Facebook or Instagram), and "What Facebook's News Ban Taught Canadians."   
• I see posts on social media -- from both Americans and Canadians! -- claiming that the Canadian government is "censoring" news.  Not true!  News (actual news, from actual journalists) is readily available, online and elsewhere -- you just can't find it or share it on Facebook or Instagram. And that's because of a decision made by Meta, not the Canadian government. (The article explains more.) 
• (For some reason, Meta's ban doesn't apply on Threads??  But shhhhh, don't remind them of that...!  lol)    
• Great news:  One of the "OG" voices in the CNBC blogging world is back! Welcome back PJ at Making Sense of It All. 
• I love, love, loved this blast from the past via Tracey Cleantis Dwyer (another longtime blogger who recently launched a Substack): "The Hardy Boys and the Mysterious Case of the Magical Meeting." (Featuring Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy, and an older/childless woman role model who changed Tracey's life.)  
• Speaking of Shaun Cassidy, Alan Osmond, oldest of the performing Osmond Brothers, died earlier this week at age 76, after living with MS for 40 (!) years.  Another brother, Wayne, died in early 2025 at age 73.  You know you're getting older when your teen idols start dying...  :(  
• Katie Dunn at Afterglow writes about whether children give your life "purpose" -- something that many childless women struggle with, when parenthood doesn't work out for them ("what's my purpose now?"). Part of the post is paywalled, but what's free to read is worth a look!  
• Another brilliant post from Ali Hall at Life Without Children:  "When Women Supporting Women Defaults to Mothers Supporting Mothers." (Subhead: "Compassion is never found in comparison.")  
• I vividly remember the story about the doctor whose daughter asked her that painful question -- and her response (or lack thereof) -- and posted about it at the time (during the height of the pandemic). 
• Ali is offering half-price annual paid subscriptions during the month of May. 
• Also from Life Without Children, childfree Rosie Diell ponders "What fence sitters can learn from the childless community." 
• Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless. So Now What?" looks at "What Happens to Your Marriage When IVF Doesn’t Work?" A couple of excerpts: 

...for many couples, IVF doesn’t work.

And when fertility treatments end without a baby, you are left with more than grief. You are left with questions about your marriage that no one prepared you for.

I remember thinking very clearly, is this going to be enough?

 

...a marriage without children is not a lesser version of life. It is a different version of life. It can still be connected, meaningful, and something you feel proud of.

Not because you convinced yourself to be okay with it, but because you built something real together after infertility.

• Poorna Bell dismantles "the myth of grandmotherhood" (and why it's important for everyone, whether or not you have grandchildren).  Most of the post is about grandmothers, but near the end, there's this: 

What about the women who aren’t grandmothers? Where is their place in society? Most of these women will have experienced a sense of isolation and an erosion of community the first time round, when it came to not having children. Having spoken to a number of women including Jody Day about this, it appears there is a second wind in one’s 60s, around grandmotherhood that raises the same issues.

(Bell muses that this particular issue "may merit a spin-off Substack" -- I would love to read that!)  

#MicroblogMondays: A blast from my past

If you don't know who Mr. Dressup is... you obviously did not grow up in Canada in the latter half of the 20th century, lol.  If you do know -- or even if you're just curious -- I highly recommend watching the wonderful documentary about him, "Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe." I'd been wanting to see it since I first heard about it a couple of years ago, and happened to see that it was on the Documentary Channel this past week. (It's also available on Amazon Prime.)  I needed lots of Kleenex while I watched -- so many childhood memories came flooding back (and I've been feeling extra-emotional about my childhood since my Mom died)... a time in my life that's starting to seem further and further away from the life I live now... 

Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs) was a beloved, iconic Canadian children's TV performer, who was born and raised in the U.S., got his start performing with Fred Rogers (yes, THAT Fred Rogers!) on TV in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, and came with him to Canada to do the very first "Misterogers" show for CBC in Toronto. When Rogers returned to the U.S. a few years later, he took "Misterogers" with him, but Coombs stayed on to become part of a new children's program on CBC, "Butternut Square." He treated children (and, well, everyone!) with the same kindness and respect that Fred Rogers was famous for, and encouraged them to foster their imaginations and creativity, using simple materials that almost everyone has around the house -- paper, pens/markers/crayons, tape, scissors, empty cardboard tubes. He sang songs and drew pictures for his audience on an easel.   

"Butternut Square" ran from 1964 to 1967. (My sister and I had dolls we named Susan and Sandy, after the girls who appeared with him on the show.)  The show was cancelled, but happily, Coombs's character of Mr. Dressup was offered his own CBC show -- called, naturally, "Mr. Dressup."  It ran for almost 30 years (!) -- until Coombs retired in 1996 -- and lived on in reruns for another 10 years after that. Generations of Canadian children grew up to know and love Mr. Dressup, his Tickle Trunk full of costumes, and his puppet sidekicks Casey and Finnegan, whose treehouse now resides in the atrium at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto. (I have walked by the CBC building many times but never gone inside... something I really need to do someday. I want to have my photo taken with the treehouse!)  In addition to the TV show, Mr. Dressup took his act on the road across Canada -- and after he retired, he kept busy touring university and college campuses, where he was met with enthusiastic crowds of young adults who had grown up watching him. 

Sadly, Ernie Coombs died at age 73 --far too young -- in September 2001 (days after the events of 9/11 -- one trauma after another...!), following a stroke, just a few years after he retired from the show, and nine years after his wife was killed in a freak car/pedestrian accident on Toronto's Yonge Street. But his memory lives on, and he remains a cultural touchstone for generations of Canadians (including me!). 

I've told this story many times over the years, but I searched my blog, and apparently I've never written it down here!  I met Coombs/Mr. Dressup, in the late 1990s -- after he retired from the show in 1996, but before he died. (I don't remember if that was before or after losing Katie in 1998, but I do remember feeling sad, when the show ended, that my future children would never know Mr. Dressup, as I had.) He actually lived in the same Toronto suburban community where we did, and was making a personal appearance one Saturday at the bookstore at the local mall. 

Dh & I walked by the store that afternoon, towards the end of his visit and saw the sign outside announcing his appearance. There was no one else there just then except the manager, who was chatting to him. "Go on, you know you want to!"  dh said, giving me a shove. 

So I went in, walked up to him, extended my hand, and said, "Mr. Dressup, I'm so happy to meet you... I remember watching you on "Butternut Square!" "

Dear man, he looked at me and said, "You can't POSSIBLY be that old!"  

No wonder I loved him!  ;)    

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

#MicroblogMondays: My tormentor, my friend, my cousin

The phone rang earlier this afternoon, my parents' number. It was my dad, and I knew right away something was wrong. 

For one awful moment, I thought he was calling about my mom. (It wasn't that.)

But he had to repeat himself two or three times before I realized who he was calling about.  

My cousin. 65 years old. 11 months older than me. Died in his sleep overnight. 

(The freaky thing is, his dad ALSO died in bed, at 65, right at this time of year. Mid-October, 26 years ago.) 

He was a big guy (retired cop), had some health issues over the years, probably drank a little too much. Very opinionated -- revelled in being a sh*t disturber.  ;)  Lots of nervous energy.  

But he was full of life and laughs and jokes and stories. He knew EVERYONE. He'd send me photos of random people, out of the blue, and I'd think "Am I supposed to know this person?"  And then I'd realize I DID know this person. He was golf buddies with at least two guys I knew from high school. I used to joke that he should go to one of my high school reunions because he'd know as many people there as I did. 

We were born in the same small town, near where our grandparents farmed, and lived there for the first few years of our lives, and spent a lot of time together then. Later, both our families moved further afield, but we often stayed with his family when they lived in the city, and we saw each other at our grandparents' farm, summers and holidays. He was kind of like the big brother I never had. 

As we got older, he (and his brothers) used to tease the life out of me. I was a sensitive kid, and he made me miserable at times. And yet? As an adult, which cousin did I think of most often, want to see whenever we were "back home"? (Go figure...) 

Sadly, that didn't happen as often as either of us would have liked, especially after I got married and moved 1000 miles away to a different province, and he got busy with his own family (three kids, now adults -- the youngest is a few months older than Katie would have been). The last time I saw him was 7 years ago in the fall of 2018, when I was "home" for Thanksgiving, and he brought his mom (my aunt) and another aunt out to my parents' place from the city for a visit, one afternoon. (We took a photo then -- the last one I have of us together. I'm glad I have it.)

But we "friended" each other on social media (I tried to ignore the crass joke memes and political things he'd post -- and some of them WERE funny), and he'd occasionally message me privately with an old family photo, or a note about how his mom/my aunt was doing. Once in a while, he'd call me (often when he'd had a drink or two, I suspect). He always made me laugh. The last time we chatted, he told me he wanted to see me next time I was home, and he really wanted me to meet his oldest daughter, because she reminded him so much of me (!).  

And he'd always end off by saying, "Love you, cousin." And I'd tell him "Love you too."  

And I did.  

I will miss those calls. I will miss him. 

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

Odds & ends

• Annoying thing:  Someone's snide post on Threads, to the effect of "who's the genius without kids who scheduled Game 6 of the World Series on Halloween?" 
• I initially scrolled past it, then went, "Hey, wait a minute...!" -- but then I couldn't find it again. :p  Anyway, it pissed me off...!   
• Both Lyz Lenz at Men Yell at Me and Anne Helen Petersen of Culture Study have made the move from Substack over to Patreon in recent weeks (Lyz is now here and AHP here).   
• It's a major pain in the butt to have to learn the ins & outs of yet ANOITHER new platform/app 🙄 (I mean, seriously...??) -- and Patreon is new to the newsletter business, and still working out some kinks -- but these two were, I think, the first two Substacks I paid for, and I get a lot out their writing and the discussion threads with other subscribers, so...  
• Anne Helen Petersen is childfree by choice -- and one of her first posts in her new space is the first in a planned new series called "BIG NO KIDS ENERGY," about the joys of not having children. 
• The post is from a childfree by choice perspective, and so are some of the comments. Happily, those of us who did not necessarily choose this life are commenting too. (I added a comment myself). It may be difficult, especially if you're new to realizing children are not going to be in your future, to imagine that life can still be good, in a different way -- that there can be anything joyful about not having children. But there are positives, and I think that childfree people and their positive perspective can be helpful to us in realizing that. :)  
• The post itself is public, and I'm not sure about the comments, but I believe you have to be a paid subscriber to comment.  
• She's looking for ideas for future posts in the series too!  
• Rosalyn at The NoMo Book Club had a great Substack post recently about inclusive language, labels, and reproductive identity. 
• The New York Times's Well newsletter on anticipatory grief:  "Is It Healthy to Grieve Before a Loss?"  (Answer:  "Yes. Here’s how to cope.") (Gift link.) 
• Lisa Sibbett at The Auntie Bulletin makes a compelling argument that "The Nuclear Family is a Failed Experiment." 
• "Jennifer Aniston Said No To Adoption. Does That Mean She Is Selfish?"  writes Marcia Garcia at Life Without Children (originally posted on Medium). This is written from a childfree by choice perspective, but happily, it does reference the CNBC experience.
• Non-ALI related, but very personal to me: Canadian Returnee shares "The Ukrainian Story of the Prairies." 

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

• 
  (Once again, odds & ends for #MM -- but hey, it's what I've got right now...!  In no particular order:) 
• It's our Thanksgiving long weekend here, and we enjoyed a nice dinner at BIL & SIL's on Saturday with the nephews & their families. 
• The Halloween goodie bags I assembled for the great-niblings were a hit!  LGNephew #1 exclaimed over the Robert Munsch book I'd chosen for him ("Boo!")  and gave me a big hug (awww...), and he and LGNiece donned their Halloween deelybobbers -- LGNephew #2 was less enchanted, lol. LGNephew #1 changed into his new glow-in-the-dark Halloween PJs to wear in the car before they left, and LGNephew #2 was sporting one of the new onesies I'd bought for him in photos posted by Older Nephew's wife the next day.  Success!!  (On to shopping for birthdays and Christmas...!  lol)  
• Still not a lot of autumn colours to be seen hereabouts! -- especially when I look at photos taken at this time of year in years past. I think it's because we had such a warm September -- no frosts to date (although we came close a couple of mornings last week!).   
• I was sad to hear the actress Diane Keaton had died at age 79 (what??!).  
• I know Woody Allen is considered completely politically incorrect/taboo these days -- but I came of age watching his movies, many of them co-starring Diane Keaton, and I still love many of them:  "Annie Hall," "Love and Death," "Play it Again Sam," :Manhattan" (yeah, it's creepy seeing him with a very young Mariel Hemingway -- but that Gershwin score! that gorgeous black-and-white cinematography!!). 
• "Annie Hall" came out just as I was heading into my last year of high school -- and the "Annie Hall" look was HUGE that year. With the money I'd earned that summer working part-time at the local drive-in movie theatre and an antique shop, I bought a new Annie-esque outfit (mostly at Fairweathers at the long-gone Unicity Mall) that I wore to my first day of school that fall:  a plaid knife-pleated skirt that fell below the knees; black thigh-high, high-heeled boots;  a white shirt, black men's tie, salmon-pink sweater vest, and grey flannel blazer. (I think I still have the tie!)
• I loved so many more of her movies too: "The Godfather" movies with Al Pacino (one of her (other) famous lovers);  "Reds," with Warren Beatty (ditto)(which I saw on my 21st birthday at a grand old movie palace in downtown Winnipeg -- en route out, I begged the theatre manager for one of the posters, which hung in my dorm room for the rest of my university career);  "Baby Boom" with the incredibly sexy Sam Shepard (although I imagine I would find the plot pretty wince-inducing these days...!);  "Something's Gotta Give" with Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves;  "The First Wives Club" with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler....   
• Keaton never married, but she adopted two children, a daughter and a son, when she was in her early 50s. (!) They would be in their 20s now, I think. 
• About 20-25 years ago, she was making a movie that was partly filmed in the small Manitoba town where my parents live. My mother told me that Keaton went in to the local Co-op grocery store with curlers in her hair (!), and the young checkout girl, not knowing who she was, asked her for her Co-op number (lolol).  I hope Keaton was as tickled by that story as we were. Hollywood pretentious she was not.  :)  
• Jennifer Aniston, poster girl/heroine for those of us who tried and didn't succeed at having the children we wanted, talks about that time in her life (among other things) in Harpers Bazaar UK's November issue. 
• Aniston previously spoke out on these matters in Allure's December 2022 issue.  I wrote about it (and the reaction to it in the CNBC community), here and here. So grateful for her honesty! 
• Nicole Chung -- who was adopted -- writes in The Atlantic about "When Adoption Promises are Broken." What happens when open adoption arrangements are not honoured? 
• As someone who knows a major cleanout of her parents' home of 40+ years (after 65+ years of marriage) is coming sooner vs later, I appreciated this Substack post from Catriona Innes of "Crocuses in the snow":  "When possessions hold memories, how do we choose what to throw away?"
• Simon Haisell at Footnotes & Tangents has announced 5 new slow readalongs for 2026, plus the return of both "War and Peace" and "Wolf Crawl "(Hilary Mantel's Cromwell Trilogy). (I took part in both W&P and Wolf Crawl in 2024, and highly recommend the experience!) I'll likely be reading along with at least some if not all of these! 
• Back in late August, drowning in back-to-school/off to college/empty nest social media posts from my mom friends, I read an article from The Atlantic about "How Parents Hijacked the College Dorm" -- and, in response, wrote a lengthy post reminiscing about my own college dorm rooms (vintage 1979 photo included!).   
• This past week, Anne Helen Petersen at "Culture Study" did a deep dive into the subject with Meagan Francis (who wrote The Atlantic article):  "What's Really Going on With Those Elaborate (Parent-Decorated) College Dorm Rooms?" The conversation was fascinating (photos included!), and so are the comments!  I believe it's not (currently?) paywalled. 
• As an avid genealogist, I absolutely loved this story when I first stumbled onto it in the New York Times three years ago (already?!):  "‘Downton Shabby': A Commoner Takes on an English Castle."  (Gift linked article.  And there's a book by the same name!)   Here's the lede: 

People who search genealogy websites often find birth and marriage records, newspaper clippings, faded photographs or maybe a long-lost relative.

Hopwood DePree found a 60-room English manor.

• It's not QUITE a "castle" -- but it's a 50,000 square-foot mansion (!), with some sections dating back to the 1400s (!). Hopwood Hall had been abandoned and derelict for decades -- but when he flew from his home in California to England to see it, Hopwood DePree recognized its value and its potential -- and he's rallied the community to save and restore the property.  
• This past week, I found a series of related video shorts from Ancestry.com on YouTube, featuring Hopwood DePree and Hopwood Hall.  Here's a link to the first episode.  They're also reposted on his Facebook & Instagram accounts, which I'm now following! 
• (I haven't looked at everything yet, but apparently, the estate is currently embroiled in some sort of dispute over the land surrounding the house that's delayed further progress on the restoration. Hopefully it will be resolved soon!) 

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

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends

• 
  Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless. So Now What?" nails it in "The Grief That Comes Without a Funeral." (Italics & boldface from the original text.) 

Here’s what few people understand: infertility grief isn’t just about a failed IVF cycle or a miscarriage. It’s about the futures we already built in our imagination. The baby names we whispered. The vacations we dreamed of as a family. The family photos we pictured on holiday cards. Every negative test isn’t just a single “no.” It’s another lifetime quietly slipping away, one no one else even knew existed. That’s why it feels so heavy, because you’re mourning futures no one else will ever acknowledge. There are no condolences. No casseroles. Just silence.

• "On the Outside," Y.L. Wolfe tells it like is: "Childless Women Do Not Need Your Unsolicited Advice."  Subheading:  "Yes, we've considered all the options, and no, we don't want to talk about it with strangers."  PREACH!! 

Small excerpt: 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The truth is, childless women make people uncomfortable. We’re living proof that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to. Our very presence inspires people’s worst fears and thus, I suspect, they feel unconsciously desperate to comfort themselves by acting like this is a problem that could easily be fixed.

• Y.L. Wolfe's writing is always great, but (as an amateur genealogist) I especially loved this article she wrote for Medium (which may or may not be paywalled?):  "The Unexpected Branching of a Childless Woman’s Family Tree." (Subhead: "Expanding the meaning of legacy for women who didn’t get the chance to have children.")  Excerpt: 

I don’t believe for a moment that our line ends here. That our existence won’t still reach as far into the future as it does into the past.

Branches will grow out from us, whether we have children or not.

and 

It’s important to remember that legacy isn’t just about biology...  you’re passing on parts of yourself to everyone you come across, whether you are related to them or not... there are countless ways to pass down your family values, your ideals, your wisdom, mostly in a manner that cannot be quantified or measured.

In fact, you’ll likely never know the impact you have made on the people in your life and the ripple effect that will have long after you are gone, on people you’ll never meet.

Legacy is a much bigger concept than we’ve been led to believe.

• Ali Hall at "Life Without Children" ponders "Why We Need To Change the Language Used for People Without Children" (subhead: "And all the ways 'childfree' and 'childless' are used against us"). (Not sure I like her proposed alternative... the quest continues...!)  
• This wasn't the first post I read musing about language choices for those of us living without children, and I'm certain it won't be the last...!  In fact -- the third post I ever wrote for this blog -- back in November 2007! -- explored a similar question:  "Am I childLESS or childFREE?" 

• Well worth a listen:  Jody Day chats with Zoe Noble of  'We Are Childfree" (which is both a Substack and a podcast, available on many podcast platforms, such as Spotify). 

• Not ALI-related, but another thoughtful & interesting piece from Charlie Angus at "The Resistance," about the most famous political assassination in Canadian history (not that there have been a lot of them -- and thank goodness for that!). I thought some of you might find it interesting! 
• As I mentioned in this post from 2017 (about a trip to Ottawa), as a high school senior taking part in the Rotary Club's Adventure in Citizenship program, I was being driven to Parliament Hill on the first morning, and the man driving me pointed to a street corner in passing and said, "Over there is the spot where where they shot D'Arcy McGee."  I had only a hazy idea of who D'Arcy McGee was at that point, but his remark stuck with me, and I looked him up when I got home, (We passed by the plaque marking the spot on that 2017 trip -- the same one pictured in the Substack post -- and I took a photo of it. We also had dinner at D'Arcy McGee's pub, also mentioned and pictured in the post.)  
• I vividly remember the other assassination mentioned, which took place 100+ years later, in October 1970 -- the "October Crisis," in which separatist terrorists kidnapped Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross in Montreal, and murdered Laporte. (Cross was released.) I was 9 years old at the time, and one of my school friends told us Laporte had been beheaded (!). Her father was an RCMP officer, so we figured she would know. (He wasn't; the poor man was strangled.)  

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

Is this a "thing" now??

It's Labour Day weekend, and I'm bracing myself for all the back-to-school photos next week (and over the next few weeks) -- although I've already been seeing them from the States, where some schools start in mid/late August.  

This is the weekend a lot of parents are moving their kids into university/college dorms and apartments, and I have a couple of friends who are sending kids off to university for the first time. For some, it's their last kid to leave home, and they're going to be empty nesters. Lots of angst. (Needless to say, I cannot relate.)  

One such friend took both of her sons to their respective schools over the weekend -- the older one starting third year at one school, and his younger brother starting first year at another = leaving home, and leaving her and her husband empty nesters. I knew there would be photos -- but I was dumbfounded when she posted photos of a a beautiful silver bracelet her younger son bought her as a "thank you Mom" gift. (It actually spells out "THANK YOU MOM" in silver letters.) She also posted a photo of the necklace her older son bought her when HE first went off to university three years ago. 

Is this a "thing" now??  (Or did she just raise very thoughtful boys?? lol)  I've never heard of buying your mom a "thank you Mom" gift when you go off to school or leave home. Of course I never heard of "push presents" until a few years ago either. 

Everything is a production and a photo op these days, it seems...!  (And a marketing/sales opportunity for businesses too, of course...!) 

(Here's another example:  Older Nephew's Wife has been a bridesmaid for several friends in recent years, and apparently you don't just give gifts to your wedding party at/just before the wedding anymore, you also hold a party where you ASK them to be in your wedding party, and give them gifts then too!! At least, that seems to be the practice hereabouts.)  

Have you ever heard of this? 

*** *** *** 

On a related note -- this article from The Atlantic (gift link) points to another back-to-school trend I've noticed in recent years and been hearing more about lately:  elaborately (and sometimes even professionally)(?!!) decorated dorm rooms, mostly courtesy of the Bank of Mom & Dad.  

I mean, seriously?? 

Here's how much times have changed (and why I simply cannot relate to all the back-to-school stuff, beyond not having a kid myself):  

I arrived at university 46 years ago this weekend (Labour Day weekend, 1979). There were no pre-application/acceptance tours of campuses with parents in tow. (I can't think of anyone who would have been caught DEAD doing that with Mom & Dad in those days.)  My high school arranged group tours of the two universities and one community college in the nearby city (an hour away) for any students interested in checking them out, and I did go on all of those, even though I was pretty sure which one I was going to attend. 

Earlier that summer, one of my high school girlfriends and I took the bus into the city to register and sign up for our courses -- which, in those early days of computerization, involved filling in a form manually, then going around from one prof's office to another to get their signatures, and then standing in long lineups at the student union building with our chequebooks and forms to pay for it all). 

We may have taken a stroll past the all-female dorm we'd applied to live in (one of several on campus), but never set foot inside before moving in. We'd requested each other as roommates on our applications, which you could do -- but it was not guaranteed our request would be accepted. In fact, I don't think I knew until I actually arrived on campus that weekend who my roommate would be. And -- unbeknown to me -- she had expressed preference on her residence application for a single room -- should she not get one, she'd take a cheaper double room with me. Preference for singles was given to returning students. Nevertheless, she beat the odds and got a single room. I think I knew this before we moved in, but I don't remember for sure. 

My mother drove me into the city that day (I think it was on the long weekend Sunday, and I don't think my dad or my sister came). There was no specific set time (other than showing up on the weekend before classes began, during office hours); we just showed up. (I remember standing in a few lineups, but they weren't very long.) I think I had two suitcases with me containing mostly clothes and a few small items, maybe a few other things, and that was about it. I don't think I was too unusual in that respect (although of course my parents didn't live tht far away, so anything I'd forgotten or needed, I could get the next time I was home or they were in the city.) 

We paid my fees at the administration office desk, got my keys and meal plan punch card for the dining hall, had my photo taken for the residence directory, and headed up to see my room. The "proctor" (residence assistant for my floor) came over to introduce herself and invite me to go with her and a couple of the other girls who had already moved in to party/social event that night. I don't remember Mom helping me unpack or lingering, or any tearful goodbyes. I was, of course, only an hour away from home, and those were very different times. 

I knew my new roommate's name, but nothing else about her. When Mom & I arrived at the room on the third floor (it was a nine-storey building overlooking the river, built in the early 1960s), my roommate was not there, but her stuff was. I stared at the framed photos on the desk and other things, trying to guess from those clues what she might be like.  She didn't actually arrive until Labour Day Monday. I'd been out and when I returned, she was sitting there, painting her nails, a polished, petite blond girl. I was a little taken aback at first -- but very happily, after some initial awkwardness, we soon got to know each other better, became fast friends, and we're still in touch, all these years later,  

Like many dorms of the era, the rooms had cinderblock walls. There was one long shared built-in counter/desk, spanning the wall below the window, with a couple of drawers below on either side, and two bookshelves and two bulletin boards on either side of the window, two chairs, two beds and, on the walls opposite the desk/window, two small closets for our clothes, and a couple of drawers topped with a counter and mirror. The beds came with pillows, linens (changed weekly by maids;  we had to strip the beds if we wanted the sheets washed, and make the beds up with the new sheets ourselves) and thin bedspreads. Some girls brought their own pillows and bedspreads/quilts from home, which I did, eventually (nothing new, a castoff from my sister's room at home).  

There was a bathroom shared by the entire floor, with several (four, I think) toilet cubicles and sinks, which was often a gathering space at night as we washed our faces and brushed our teeth before going to bed. There was a shower room with several shower cubicles, and a couple of separate tub rooms each equipped with a bathtub and sink. A handful of  large rooms or suites were reserved for people like the residence council president, the head resident (an administrative role), and some of the residents who had lived there the longest, had larger rooms/suites with private bathrooms. I got one of those rooms in my fourth and final year by virtue of my seniority -- a double room converted to a large single with a private bathroom (including tub/shower unit) -- and I must say it was nice. :)  There were coin-operated washers and dryers in the basement where you could do laundry. 

Our rooms had no phones: there was a payphone downstairs. There were phone jacks in each room, though, and we could (and did) go to the phone company office at the local mall (a short bus ride away), and arrange to rent one. (Most of us got the basic black, dial model, which was the cheapest option.) My roommate and I split the rental cost and each paid for our own long-distance calls. Long distance, of course, was expensive in those days. The weekends that I didn't go home -- and I didn't actually go home that often, especially after the first while, and then my parents moved further away, which reduced my incentive to visit too often -- I would call home on Sunday night to chat (which was the cheapest). We also bought a small wipe-off message board with an attached water-soluble marker. Just about everyone had one; that was how we left messages for our friends and neighbours, in those pre-computer & pre-cellphone days.  

Over time, I brought more and more stuff from home. I think I already had an electric alarm clock-radio (with the numbers that flipped over -- pre-digital days!). I brought a desk lamp, and my portable typewriter, and a couple of favourite stuffed animals. We papered the walls with posters, bought at the campus bookstore and the nearby KMart (I particularly remember Peter Frampton and Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem from The Muppets over my bed, lol -- maybe because they're both visible in one of the few photos I took of my room that year -- see below). 

There was a full-sized refrigerator in the floor lounge (also a kettle and toaster), but my new roommate brought a small kettle/hot pot, and I contributed a small bar-size refrigerator (thanks, Dad!), and we assembled a small collection of mugs, glasses, plates and cutlery (many -- ahem! -- pilfered from the cafeteria). The parents also provided a small (12") black-and-white TV. Using the "rabbit ears" antenna, I could pull in a few (about 4) local stations. When I was in third year, my parents gave me a stereo for Christmas, which I'd been begging for for YEARS -- a turntable, tuner/radio/cassette . (I promptly burst into tears.)  I took it with me when I returned to school after the holidays, along with some of my LPs (and naturally I accumulated more over time). When I got a bigger room in third year, I made a low bookshelf out of a couple of boards and some bricks that a friend with a car helped me to buy at nearby lumber yard. 

There was storage space in the basement where you could keep boxes and trunks and larger items (like mini-fridges) in the summertime. We'd leave a note in the elevator for Tom, the good-natured caretaker, asking him to "please come take my boxes from Room 324 down to storage, thanks!" and then the reverse in the fall -- "Hi Tom, could you please bring up the boxes for Lori Lastname to Room 742" -- and they would magically appear in your room when you got back from class later that day. 

I lived in that dorm for all four years of undergrad, moving up to larger and larger single rooms -- and accumulating more and more stuff. ;)  (Textbooks alone took up a few boxes.) As I said, I arrived that first fall (1979) with little more than two suitcases. When I moved out in April 1983, my dad had to borrow a friend's half-ton pickup truck, and we completely filled the back. We borrowed a trolley from Tom, and made several trips up and down in the elevator and out to the truck, as my floormates sat in the lounge and watched in amusement. When we brought out the last few boxes, they broke out into applause. (Smarta**es, lol.)  

I cried as we drove away. It was the end of an era. That dorm was my home for four years-- especially once my parents moved away from the town where we'd lived for six years, and where I'd gone to high school. They were some of the best -- definitely the most fun -- years of my life, and I still think about it, and dream that I'm back there. 

I think I've posted this photo before? 
My side of my first-year dorm room, with standard dorm bedspreads and furniture.
Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem & Peter Frampton above the bed. :) 
Fall 1979. 

#MicroblogMondays: Post-vacation odds & ends

I just got back from two weeks with my parents and sister last night and have had NO time to put together a proper post -- but I've been collecting a few odds & ends -- and since it's #MicroblogMonday...!  

• Many of the "annoying things and small pleasures" described in past posts about family visits -- including this one, this one, this one -- still apply. ;)  
• Also annoying:  the weather there. We alternated between extreme heat/humidity and cold/rain, with some forest fire smoke thrown in for good measure (air quality health index of 10+ -- out of 10, i.e., dangerous, on several days). "Sunny Manitoba" is one of the province's mottos/marketing slogans, but (sadly) it was decidedly not that this time around...!  :(  
• The weekend I landed at my parents' house was the 40th anniversary of LiveAid.  I didn't know until later that they were showing the entire concert again on YouTube -- I was pretty busy that day anyway, but I was sorry I'd missed it. 
• LiveAid happened exactly one week after our wedding.  I remember watching parts of the concert on & off that day from our hotel room in Calgary, where we were just wrapping up our honeymoon in Banff & Jasper (as well as a day at the Calgary Stampede, lol), before flying to Toronto to start married life together. 
• I've enjoyed watching the four-part LiveAid documentary series that CNN has been showing on past few Sundays. (Fourth & final episode coming up this weekend!)  Lots of great memories (but yikes -- some of those people have aged!). (But then again, so have I...!  lol)  
• A recent post from Grumpy Rumblings included a link to an article about "cinema's greatest scene" -- the singing of "La Marseillaise" from "Casablanca," my all-time favourite movie. The article is 10 years old, but it's a brilliant and thorough analysis and worth a read, especially if you're a fan! 
• I recently learned that our former family doctor of 28 years, who retired 11 years ago, died a few weeks ago.  Too late for us to attend the visitation or funeral  :(  but I would have loved to be there and tell his wife (who was his nurse) -- again -- how much we appreciated their care.  
• Doc appeared in several of my posts over the initial years of this blog, including my "1998 memories" and "The Treatment Diaries" series, and this post from 2014, where I wrote about saying goodbye to him before he retired. 
• As you will read here (gift link),  not only was he a heck of a good doctor, he was a Major League Baseball player and had four World Series rings!! -- two from his time as a relief pitcher (1964 St. Louis Cardinals and 1969 New York "Miracle" Mets), and two in his role as the Toronto Blue Jays team doctor. (His nickname was "Dr. Baseball,"  and his two sons made a documentary short film about him by that name! -- you can find it online.)  He also had an engineering degree, pre-medicine!  
• Since I wrote about the passing of my high school English teacher in late June, my classmates & I learned about the deaths of not just one but TWO classmates (less than two weeks apart from each other) -- both from forms of cancer. :(  Both were my classmates in junior high as well as high school (at that time, there were four K-9 schools in our town, as well as a couple of K-6 schools and two high schools).  They're not the first to go, and they certainly won't be the last (cough!) -- but seriously, aren't we too young for this to be happening?? 

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

#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things, small pleasures, and other odds & ends

(A multipurpose post...!  lol)  

Annoying things: 

• It's been a busy week!  It feels like there's never enough time to get everything done on my daily to-do lists (especially with a vacation coming up soon...!)  I have days of unopened emails. (I have been checking, in case there's something truly important.)  
• I just got back from the dentist (boo, hiss...). We went for checkups about two weeks ago, where I discovered I had at least one cavity and likely two (the tooth beside it). Oh joy. :p  So it was back to the city this morning.  I barely felt the freezing injection (yay!), but the procedure itself was rather arduous. :(  Not painful, but a lot of tugging and pressure involved.  I felt limp as a rag but glad when it was over (at least until I saw the bill...!  -- thank goodness for dental insurance...!).  As I type, I'm still waiting for the freezing to wear off (it's almost gone!) to try out my new bite (i.e., lunch!).  
• Our building's air conditioning system decided to conk out last Tuesday during a recent heat wave -- one of the hottest days of the year so far (35C/44C humidex), amid record temperatures for June. Temperatures inside reached 80F (about 27C)(normally we keep the thermostat set at 74F. Our HVAC unit WAS running, but the air it was blowing was not very cool/cold. :p  We both felt pretty wilted (especially after three days of high temperatures and humidity, even when the a/c was running!), but ran the Dyson purifier fan, drank lots of fluids, and went to the mall for a few hours for respite. 
• Related small pleasure:  We bought a yummy rotisserie chicken at the supermarket on Sunday so that we didn't have to cook, and used the leftovers with salad to make light no-cook meals for the next two nights too.  

Small pleasures:  

• Kobo has been making some changes to its website recently... I'm not sure I like all of them, BUT I recently logged on and noticed changes to my wish list:  it's now sortable!  Newest to oldest added (which is how it was organized previously), alphabetical by title (but sadly not by author -- A to Z and Z to A), most to least expensive and vice versa. If I choose the "least to most expensive" option, I can see right away if any books on my list are on sale cheap, instead of having to scroll through the entire list. (And I have a very LARGE wish list...!)  
• After complaining (ummm, WRITING! lol) about my futile search for a pair of sandals to wear to a family wedding in August, I found (bought!) not just one but two pairs on a recent expedition to the mall! Both are silver (or silver-ish), flat or low-heeled, wide widths in my size, and feel relatively comfortably on my very wide foot! (I could actually get my foot into them!  lol) And both pairs were fairly reasonably priced too.  This one is silver with a one-inch chunky heel -- so it's not flat, but the heel feels substantial enough that I won't be teetering precariously in it. The other one is completely flat, but I think it's just dressy enough (particularly with the floral print dress I bought). It's "nude" -- gold-ish overtones vs pure silver, but I think it's silver-y enough. Anyway, that's a load off my mind!   

Personal stuff: 

• I recently, mostly, stopped wearing a mask in (most) public places, for the first time in 5 (-ish) years.  (Fingers crossed...!)  Dh has been foregoing masks for a while now, and I will admit, after five years, I was a little tired of putting on a mask and dealing with foggy glasses and a sweaty face -- especially at the mall, when (on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning, which is usually when we go) there were so few people around anyway. 
• I still keep a couple in my purse just in case, and I still put one on if I'm somewhere where there's a lot of people and/or the air circulation doesn't seem very good, etc. And we'll definitely be wearing them at the airport and on the plane west to see my family in a few weeks' time!  
• I found out this week (via my high school graduating class's Facebook page) that our English teacher (in both Grades 10 & 12, as well as our yearbook advisor) passed away last week. Mr. P. was 80. Not only was he our teacher, he had been a student at the same high school himself in the early 1960s, and later went on to become principal -- essentially devoting the better part of his life to the school and the community. He was an excellent teacher -- as evidenced by the hundreds and hundreds of comments on a community FB page I joined, and on the funeral home obituary.  He taught several generations of students from the same families -- their parents, their kids, their aunts, uncles & cousins.  Decades later, he still remembered their names, their stories, their family members. He was, in short, legendary. 
• I added a comment myself, and enjoyed scanning the others, and seeing many familiar names from my past. 
• I didn't know, but learned from one commenter, that Mr. P. was reluctant to accept the principal's job, and only did so on the condition that he could still carve out some time to continue teaching.  
• One former student recalled running into Mr. P. at the grocery store -- who glanced at her shopping list, and pointed out that she'd misspelled an item. (I'm sure she made his day, lol.)  
• And I was particularly amused to read one from a former student (obviously younger than me) whose first year of high school was Mr. P.'s last before retirement in 2010. He recalled Mr. P. addressing a student assembly on the first day of classes, and compared him to Dumbledore at Hogwarts, lol. 
• My class is collecting money and will make a donation in Mr. P.'s memory to one or more of the charities mentioned in his obituary, and/or plant a tree(s) in his honour. 
• The memorial service was held Friday afternoon, and I watched the livestream (three cheers for the Internet!). It was held at the big church where my graduation took place (I don't know if that's still the venue these days). 
• One of the speakers was one of his four (!) sons -- who is also now a teacher AND a vice-principal at the same high school!  
• (I'll admit, as a childless person, it was a little tough hearing all the talk about children and grandchildren, generations of students from the same families, etc... It also stirred up a lot of memories from my school days. Most parents get to regale/bore (lol) their kids with those kinds of stories.  Who do I get to share those memories with??) 
• I've mentioned Mr. P, in several previous posts here -- in particular, this one from 2010 (in which I named him as one of the people who had the biggest impact on my life, outside of family), and this one from 2019, about memorable teachers in my life. 

 Recent reading/viewing: 

• Going through my archives, I stumbled onto this post from June 2015 -- 10 years ago. Very timely, given the recent death of musical genius Brian Wilson, and I decided to share it again. I'm betting you will want to listen to some Beach Boys music after reading it!  
• There was a fascinating/disturbing story in the New Yorker recently about children adopted from China, reconnecting with their biological families through DNA testing.  (I found the link in an ad post on Facebook, and was able to access it without a subscription.)  
• Jody Day's quarterly/seasonal Fireside Wisdom Zoom discussions with a fabulous panel of childless elderwomen (the "Nomo Crones") are always interesting and worth watching!  The topic this time around was menopause. The video of this session is now available on the Gateway Women website (under the "Childless Elderwomen" tab). Just be aware there is some frank/explicit discussion about sex.

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