Back to school week :(

Zoe Clark-Coates has the best stuff. :) 
Thinking of everyone whose kids should have been starting school this week, 
even the kids who only existed in our dreams. 

Lots of odds & ends!

• Ahhhhhh!!  It's the Tuesday after Labour Day -- the first day of school for most kids hereabouts. I know there will still be masses of social media posts to wade through over the next while (or skip over... or block, lol)(not that I haven't already been doing so for the past month...!), but I feel like a huge burden has been removed from my childless shoulders, or will be removed shortly.  
• We've been pretty much holed up in our condo for most of the past week. I mean, that's our choice -- and covid concerns are a factor in that too (and the weather has sucked this past weekend as well...!) -- but we've known from years of experience (well before covid!) that going anywhere during the last week before school starts is an exercise in frustration, with mobs of parents & kids shopping and eating out and cramming in all the stuff they meant to do during the previous two months of summer. Avoidance has proven to be our best strategy.  ;) 
• On a related note:  Another CNBCer flagged a Twitter post from an executive at a British retailer called Timpson, patting themselves on the back for their policy of offering employees who are parents a day off on their kids' first day of school.  (I seem to remember a similar post from the same company last year.)  It's had more than 57,000 "likes." and more than 3,000 retweets to date. 
• Needless to say, no equivalent day off is offered to employees without children -- and those pointing this out in the comments are being told to (in the words of one commenter) "wise up and shut up." (Grrrr....)  Nobody is saying parents shouldn't have time off to deal with parenting issues -- but childless/free people could use some extra time off too, for various valid reasons. Fair is fair... 
• We had a rude awakening Sunday morning when the fire alarm went off around 5 a.m. :p  Neither dh nor I had been having a good night -- dh had JUST gotten back to sleep, after being up for hours!  Nevertheless, we hauled our butts out of bed, got dressed, grabbed wallets and phones and put on jackets and masks (I think we're the only people in the building who still wear them in common spaces)(and this time I remembered to put on my wedding & engagement rings) and headed down the stairwell. 
• The fire department had already arrived by the time we got outside, and we were cleared to head back in again within about half an hour. Someone on the 5th floor, at the opposite end of the building from us, had been up and smoking, and the smoke was enough to set off not only the alarm for their unit for the entire building. Yikes! (Thankfully, it did NOT set off the sprinkler system!)    
• There was a SECOND alarm & evacuation later that evening, around 9 p.m. Same unit!!  They're investigating whether the smoke detector is defective. ( #adventuresincondoliving )
• Older Nephew followed up his Instagram video of Little Great-Nephew in a Buzz Lightyear costume with another on Instagram Stories the next day, of him helping LGN, still in costume, "fly" around the house. 
• (I cried over that one too.) 
• Bloglovin' was back this weekend, briefly. It popped up again on my laptop on Friday morning (Sept. 2nd), after an absence/outage of more than a week & a half (since Wednesday, Aug. 23rd).
• And then Sunday morning, it was gone again. :p  Sigh.  :p  
• Also this weekend (sadly):  10 dead, at least 18 people wounded (all stabbed), 13 crime scenes in two communities -- one suspect dead (not, it's believed, by his own hand) and the other still on the loose, in Saskatchewan. :(   It's being called one of the worst incidents of mass violence in Canadian history. There's been prominent coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and on CNN, as well as in the Canadian media. 
• The small town of Weldon, where at least one of the stabbings took place, is just a few minutes down the road from one of the small towns in Saskatchewan where we lived in the early 1960s when I was a pre-schooler. There was -- and still is! -- a ferry there that takes cars (six at a time) across the South Saskatchewan River. 
• I have not been back to that area in almost 30 years (I spent a few hours in nearby Melfort, en route back to Saskatoon on a business trip in the early/mid-1990s -- and it's been at least 45 years since I've been back to the two nearby towns where we lived in the 1960s), but it's an area of the country that's still close to my heart. 
• It's also not that far (about an hour-plus) from the site of the tragic bus crash that claimed the lives of 16 hockey team members from Humboldt (which I wrote about here). 
• I was stunned when a friend we met through our pregnancy loss support group, almost (gulp) 20 years ago now, posted on social media last week about the death of her ex-husband (who often came with her to group). Although they both found new partners since those days, they remained friends as well as co-parents, which is always nice to see. He was just 53. :(  
• Did you see "The Baby Business," a special report on the fertility industry, on CNN last night? It was reported by anchor Alisyn Camerota, the mother of IVF twins and a former board member and support group leader for RESOLVE, who wrote about her personal experiences and what she learned while researching this report for CNN's website. Nothing that I didn't already know, but still some pretty shocking stories and calls for more oversight of the industry. 
• Watch the embedded video in Alisyn's article, in which she and four others talk about their infertility experiences. I was heartened that Susan Hendricks -- who admits fertility treatments worked for her, and wondered whether she'd suffered "enough" to speak on this panel -- mentions that treatments don't work for so many others -- and that the doctor on the panel mentions childlessness as one of the options that some people choose. Progress? (Albeit none of the people featured in the video or in the report, wound up childless after treatments...) 
• Loved this piece by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post:  "I usually ignore the sexism and ageism directed at me. Now I’m calling it out." 
• Speaking of sexism -- I stumbled onto an obituary in the New York Times for a woman named Marilyn Loden, and had a shock of recognition. I haven't heard the name or thought of this in years, but she spoke at a conference I attended early on in my career -- mid/late 1980s. I remember reading her book at the time, but I did not realize or remember that she coined the term "glass ceiling"!
• I first encountered Carrie Hauskens via the recent Childless Collective Summit. She's childless/free after infertility and loss (including stillbirth), and blogs at Blooming With Care (which I've added to my blogroll on the right-hand side of the page) and on Medium, where she's posted some really excellent stuff -- most recently "Where Do Stillborn Mothers Belong?" and "Do You Have Kids?".  You can also find her on Instagram. 
• While I'm (obviously) not a mom (in the conventional sense anyway), I've long been fascinated by modern parenting culture and, more recently, "momfluencers," particularly as I became more and more aware of how heavily pronatalist our society is. 
• So when I stumbled onto Sara Petersen's Substack newsletter, "In Pursuit of Clean Countertops," via Anne Helen Petersen's "Culture Study," I signed up for a free subscription. 
• The particular article that had me clicking on the "subscribe" button was a few weeks back in the archives, titled: "On blaming the victim for their reproductive struggles: Ableism, baby soul readiness, and neglected "womb voices"." Just go read it!
• Sample quote from near the end (boldfacing and capitalization are the author's): "Some people cannot get pregnant without medical intervention. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR RIGHTNESS OR GOODNESS AS HUMAN BEINGS OR THEIR BABIES’ SOULS. Fertility is morally neutral. And to suggest that the sometimes incredibly painful experience of infertility can be magically cured by more carefully attending to one’s “womb voice” and dealing with one’s latent CONTROL ISSUES is irresponsible and potentially harmful."
• Also worth a read: an article Petersen wrote for Harper's Bazaar -- "Momfluencer Content Enrages Me. Why Can't I Look Away?" 
• Sample quote: "[Jo] Piazza [author and journalist, whose podcast "Under the Influence" explores momfluencer culture] praises momfluencers for figuring out how to monetize the unpaid labor of motherhood, and I do too. Full stop. I’m still bothered, though, that the particular flavor sold by the most successful momfluencers is one conceived by patriarchy: a beautiful mother made happy by her beautiful children in her beautiful home."
• Good article about friendships between women with and without children in The Guardian today, including some insights from Jody Day of Gateway Women (...somewhat tempered by some slightly tone-deaf observations from the author at the end about her own child and parenting experiences...!). 
• As usual, caveat emptor when it comes to the comments... 
• Housekeeping:  New tag/label added for "eyes/vision." I'm also working on changing the posts labelled "Facebook" to the more generic "social media," since these posts are often about a lot more than just Facebook. (Since I started posting with the "Facebook" label, I've added Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and goodness knows what other social media apps to my repertoire...!)  
• I've noticed that the formatting on some of my early posts is all wonky -- the currently posted version looks fine to readers, but if I go in to change anything, the formatting is gone (no paragraph breaks, so the sentences all run together...!) and needs to be recreated. So I may put off changing labels on those posts until I can go in & fix the formatting. Sigh... 

#MicroblogMondays: To infinity and beyond...

Little Great-Nephew (age 2 & 1/2) LOVES the "Toy Story" movies, and Buzz Lightyear (much like his dad & especially his uncle did at the same age!).  

Saturday afternoon, I opened my Instagram feed -- and there at the top of the page was a video of LGN with his dad (our Older Nephew --mom was obviously holding the phone/camera), modelling a Buzz Lightyear suit -- his Halloween costume -- with a HUGE smile on his face (matched only by his proud dad's)! while the dog romped around him and Randy Newman's song, "You've Got a Friend in Me" played.  :)  

He was a picture of pure delight and joy -- just SO sweet and beautiful. 

Reader, I lost it. I sobbed. 

I still get weepy whenever I go back to look at it. 

Just one of those grief-y moments that sneaks up on you now & then....

(I took screenshots. One of them is now my cellphone wallpaper.  ;)   )(Not the one below, lol.) 

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

My great-nephew, Buzz Lightyear. ;)  (And the dog!) 

Right now

Right now...* 

*(an occasional (mostly monthly) meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"). (Explanation of how this started & my inspirations in my first "Right now" post, here. Also my first "The Current" post, here.)

Pandemic diary/update: August was Month #29 (going on #30 -- the 2.5-year mark) of living with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Our provincial government continues to take the attitude of "move along, nothing to see here." Early in August, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health declared that Wave #7 had peaked.  Yesterday (a full month later), he admitted that Wave #7 is still ongoing, but it has plateaued. He also admitted the province can expect to see more cases in the fall (duh) -- school is starting (no masks required), boosters for children aged 5-11 were only announced yesterday, colder weather is on the way, and once it arrives, we'll be moving back indoors. 

Not helping matters: nearly all restrictions are gone. Fewer and fewer masks are being worn voluntarily wherever we go. Also announced yesterday: the province is dropping the mandatory five-day isolation guideline for people who test positive for covid. You "should" stay home until you're feeling better, and wear a mask for 10 days, but nobody's going to be enforcing this. 

The province's COVID-19 Science Advisory Table -- a volunteer group of independent scientific and public health experts who advise the government on its response to the pandemic (and who have repeatedly urged the government to take the pandemic more seriously) -- is being disbanded as of Sept. 6th, along with its covid information dashboard, which includes readings of virus levels in the province's wastewater. These readings are one of the very few concrete, non-anecdotal measurements left to tell us just how much covid virus is circulating in the community (and thus help people assess their personal risk levels). (This opinion piece by Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star -- written before the official announcement was made -- provides some background and analysis. Here's another good piece by Andre Picard of The Globe & Mail.) 

Meanwhile, hospitals have been swamped and understaffed all summer long, emergency rooms have been forced to close, and we continue to hear about friends, relatives and friends of friends getting covid, many for the first time. (A University of Toronto epidemiologist I follow on Twitter noted that "covid hospitalizations in children < 10, and in elders over 70, are currently far higher than they were in summer of 2020, or summer 2021.")  

But sure... the pandemic is over...  :(   ("It's just a cold," one of dh's cousins breezily assured me when we saw her recently....) 

As of June 16th, the government has been reporting covid data weekly (on Thursdays) instead of daily, making it even harder to tell just what's going on. :(  The Toronto Star (my main source of covid data) has started a brand-new weekly stats tracking page -- but not all data categories that were previously reported are still being disclosed there. :(   If you look at the charts for the past two months/over the course of the summer (they start on July 1st), most of the categories tracked either show an increase in numbers, or have remained more or less the same over the course of the summer ( = there has not been significant improvement). 

Among the latest stats (last updated Aug. 25th): 

• New case numbers & test positivity rates are no longer reported (on the Star's page, anyway -- not that they've been very accurate anyway, since PCR testing was limited/cut back at the peak of the Omicron outbreak in late December/early January). 

• Hospitalizations (people in hospitals testing positive for covid) decreased slightly over the month, from 1,433 on July 1st to 1,354 on Aug. 25th (up 1.3% over the previous week). Peak was 1,498 on Aug. 3rd.  
• There were 150 patients with COVID-19 in Ontario's ICUs testing positive for COVID-19 or there for COVID-19 related illness on Aug. 1st, and 146 on Aug. 25th, up 6.6% over the previous week. Peak was 154 on Aug. 2nd. 
• There were 0 deaths on Aug. 1st and 19 on Aug.25th. Peak was 33 on Aug. 4th. The 7-day average was 12.7, up 58.9% over the previous week. (Total pandemic deaths reported: 13,958.) 
• On Aug. 25th, 86.8% of Ontario's total population has had at least one vaccine, 83.5% had at least two, but just 51.2% had received a third dose. (No stats provided for fourth doses, which only became available to adults under age 60 in mid-July.)  These numbers have hardly budged over the past couple of months. 

With a population of just over 14 million, Ontario has logged 1,39360 (officially counted) cases of covid and 13,828 deaths (the Star reported 13,958). For Canada as a whole (population 38 million), those numbers are 4,143,709 cases and 43,617 deaths. (These numbers are from The Globe & Mail, as of Aug. 25th.) 

On the personal pandemic front: Despite the almost complete lack of both mask mandates and voluntary masking hereabouts, dh & I continue to wear masks when out in public, and have remained (mostly) socially distanced -- particularly while recovering from my eye surgery on July 25th, and before/after my gallbladder removal surgery on Aug. 15th.  On top of dh's weekly (masked) trips to the supermarket for groceries and for occasional takeout lunches & dinners: 

• We visited SIL & Little Great-Nephew at BIL & SIL's house 3 times, including once to stay with LGN for an hour while SIL had an appointment. He continues to be such a joy...! 
• We returned to our Old Community on Aug. 3rd to see our family doctor about prescription renewals and visit our Katie at the cemetery, in advance of "her" day on Aug. 7th. 
• We went through the drive-through at Dairy Queen on Aug. 7th, then sat in the car in the parking lot and toasted Katie with Blizzards (Skor for me, Oreo for dh -- a traditional activity/food for us on this day/weekend, lol).  
• We were back at a downtown hospital the next morning (Aug. 4th) to check how my right eye is healing, post-July 25th surgery (superficial keratectomy), and back again for another checkup on Aug. 25th. 
• En route home on the 4th, we stopped at our usual local drugstore to fill my new prescriptions and pick up a few sundries. 
• We walked to a lab near our condo building on Aug. 11th for bloodwork for our family doctor. 
• My gallbladder removal surgery was on Aug. 15th at a new hospital close to where we live. 
• We had coffee at BIL & SIL's house with them, BIL & dh's aunt, her two daughters (dh & BIL's cousins) and their husbands (Saturday, Aug. 20th). 
• We had haircut appointments back in our Old Community on Aug. 26th, and stopped at the drugstore on our way back home to pick up some prescriptions and other things. 
• BIL & SIL had lunch at Younger Nephew & his wife's townhouse last Saturday (Aug. 27th), and they called us over for coffee & dessert. We walked -- it's less than 10 minutes away.  :)  
• On Aug. 30th, we went for gelato, browsed in the (very busy) bookstore (where, aside from another couple in line for the checkout, we were the only people wearing masks), and stopped at the drugstore. 

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** 

Also right now:  

Reading: I finished 5 books in August (all reviewed on this blog, as well as Goodreads, & tagged  "2022 books").  Not bad, especially considering that I have been rather preoccupied over the past month or two, and the vision in my right eye, for several weeks post-surgery (on July 25th), was less than optimal!  

• "Exit" by Belinda Bauer (the Gateway/Lighthouse Women book club's August pick; discussed at our Aug. 21st Zoom meeting).  (My review.) 
• "Arrow Through the Heart: The Biography of Andy Gibb" by Matthew Hild. (My review.) 
• "Don't Stop Believin'"  by Olivia Newton-John. (My review.) 
• "Anna and her Daughters" by D.E. Stevenson (summer read for my D.E. Stevenson fan group). (My review.) 
• "Sarah Morris Remembers" by D.E. Stevenson (for my upcoming D.E. Stevenson group discussion in September. I'll count this as a re-read once our group read is done). (My review.) 

This brings me to 36 books read so far in 2022, which brings me to 80% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway) 7 books ahead of schedule. :)  

Current read(s): 

• "Tales of the City" by Armistead Maupin (the Gateway/Lighthouse Women book club pick for September). 
• "The Menopause Manifesto" by Dr. Jen Gunter. 

Coming up: 

Most of my book groups have their next reads plotted out for a few months in advance -- and listing them here helps me keep track of what I should be reading next. ;)  

• For the Gateway/Lighthouse Women book club: 
• "Bewildered" by Laura Waters (October) 
• Within the private online Gateway Women (now called Lighthouse Women) community, we have two groups discussing Jody Day's book, "Living the Life Unexpected" -- one group that's more conducive to UK/European/Australasian time zones, and mine, which is mostly North Americans. Since January, we've been meeting on Zoom to discuss one chapter per month. I missed our seventh call, on July 17th, to discuss Chapter 7, and we'll be discussing Chapter 8 in mid-September. If/when we complete the full 12 chapters, I'll count it as another re-read. :)  

A few recently purchased titles (in digital format, mostly discounted ($5.99 or less) or purchased with points): 

• "Great Circle" by Maggie Shipstead 
• "This Will Not Pass" by Jonathan Martin & Alex Burns 
• "Everything I Need I Get From You" by Kaitlyn Tiffany 
• "The Marlow Murder Club" by Robert Thorogood 
• "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner
• "Madam Speaker" by Susan Page 
• "Bright Burning Things" by Lisa Harding 
• "The Palace Papers" by Tina Brown 
• "Bittersweet" by Susan Cain 
• "All In" by Billie Jean King 
• "The Hollow Sea" by Annie Kirby 

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** 

Watching: A whole lot of reruns...!  (Not much on TV lately...! and I just can't seem to get in the habit of using our Netflix subscription...) 

(Still) Waiting for season 2 of "Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy" to resume on CNN on Sunday nights... 

Listening: I never got into Wordle, but I've been having fun with the daily Heardle challenge!  I am pretty good at identifying anything from the 1960s through 1980s (and maybe even some of the 1990s), but I suck when it comes to anything past the year 2000, lol -- which, unfortunately, has been the bulk of featured songs lately. (Although I did get Carrie Underwood "Before He Cheats" with just two clues a while back, and I correctly guessed that it might be Billie Eilish last week, although I couldn't name one of her songs to save my life.)  

Curiously, I have different stats, depending on whether I look at my laptop or my cellphone??  On my laptop: my current streak stats are 7/25 or 28% correct (maximum streak: 0:2). On the phone, I'm at 10/30 or 33.3% correct, and my maximum streak is 0:3 (as of Aug. 31st).  

Eating:  Theoretically, I should be able to eat anything I want now (post-gallbladder surgery) -- although the nurse I spoke with, pre-operation, warned me that most people find that fast food "goes right through them," at least at first, until their body adjusts to the absence of the gallbladder. (And of course, having lost about 18 pounds over the past year as I coped with all my various medical issues, I am reluctant to put any of it back on again...!)  

I've been trying not to tempt fate too much yet, but we had takeout fish & chips on Saturday night, and that went well. I'm hoping to slowly start adding some of my former favourites back into my diet, at least occasionally -- like crockpot roast beef, casseroles with ground beef and onions, hamburgers and french fries from our favourite local fast-food joint, and cheese!  

Drinking:  Not much lately (in terms of alcohol anyway!), because of my surgeries and all the various medications I've been using.  

I know the pumpkin spice lattes are available now at Starbucks. I've never quite "got" the appeal. Personally, I've been craving an iced mochaccino lately, lol.  Maybe on our way out of the bookstore next time we're there...? (Haven't indulged in a Starbucks since the pandemic began.)  

Buying (besides books, lol):  Plane tickets to see my family in October!  (And crossing: all crossables that we don't experience any problems...!)  

I haven't been doing much shopping lately, in store or online. I did pick up a couple of necklaces and a pair of earrings in an Instagram sale by my favourite sterling silver jewelry artisan this month. 

Wearing: Loose, comfortable clothing that doesn't irritate my incisions, including drawstring shorts and yoga pants. NOT wearing: a bra!! (lol)  (The band would sit uncomfortably close to my largest incision, so I'm using that excuse for a few weeks! ;)  ) 

Noticing:  The back-to-school photos seem to start earlier and earlier every year... I was seeing some in my social media feeds in early August! and I know they won't stop until sometime in mid-September. The dragged-out timeline makes it harder, I think... 

Appreciating:  My dh, who has thoroughly spoiled me over the past month before and after my surgeries :)  (as if he doesn't spoil me most of the time anyway!  lol).  ;)  

Enjoying:  Not having to constantly put drops in my eye anymore! (Just regular over-the-counter drops, four times a day.)  

Wanting: A few more gelato outings before the cold weather sets in. :)  

Hoping:  To get out and about a little more and enjoy what's left of the summer, now that my medical procedures are done!  

Prioritizing: My recovery, even though I'm feeling pretty good now, and trying not to overdo things for another few weeks yet. (I was told no lifting anything more than 20 pounds, etc., for at least four weeks post-surgery, which would bring me to mid-September.) 

Waiting: For my follow-up in mid-September with the surgeon who removed my gallbladder; for my other follow-up with my optometrist (also in mid-September); for our cottage weekend with BIL, SIL and dh & BIL's cousin & his wife (scheduled for late September);  and for Canadian Thanksgiving in October and a long-awaited trip "home" to see my parents & sister!  

Wondering: Whether I can fit everything I want/need for my trip home into a carry-on?? (to decrease the odds of losing our luggage...!).  Theoretically, I should be able to do it -- we're only staying for a week, and I will have Mom's washer & dryer at our disposal, plus I already keep a stash of toiletries there, so I won't have to stretch my carry-in liquid limits too much...  

Loving: Those rare days lately when the heat & humidity subside enough that we can open the balcony door and let in some fresh air! 

Feeling: Relieved to have my summer surgeries behind me (and that they both went well). Sad that they consumed almost my entire summer. :p  Grateful that my recovery to date has been pretty good. Looking forward to seeing my parents & sister in a few weeks' time!  

Month-end odds & ends

• How is it the end of August already?? 
• Little Great-Nephew is sick -- with hand, foot & mouth disease.  :(   He's been at home with his mom all week to date, so we did not get to see him as usual this morning.  :(  BIL missed him so much he played hooky from work for a few hours yesterday morning -- he drove all the way up to Older Nephew's house (about an hour away, one way!) to bring LGN a toy, and then drove all the way back again and went to work!  
• We bought our tickets to head west to see my family in early/mid-October for (Canadian)   Thanksgiving. Yay!! (Crossing all crossables that we don't run into any issues...!) 
• Last fall, I read and reviewed a great dystopian novel (with a bit of a childless angle to it!) called "Widowland" by C.J. Carey for the Gateway Women NoMo book club. It wasn't yet available here in North America, so I ordered a hardcover copy from the UK, via Amazon (US).  
• "Widowland" was finally released here in North America earlier this month (paperback, different publisher & cover). I was back in our local bookstore for the first time in a while recently, saw the paperback on the shelves and picked it up to flip through. 
• Imagine my complete & utter surprise to see that it contains an entirely different ending!! -- a 6-plus-page epilogue coming after the final chapter (Chapter 32, which is where my hardcover from the UK ends)(as well as a reading group guide and a Q&A with the author)!! (I wound up buying the paperback just so I could compare the two books & read the new-to-me ending!) 
• I've noticed a couple of other small changes between the two editions, just in the few passages I've looked at, and wondering just how extensive they are throughout the book?? 
• Personally, I thought the book did end a bit abruptly -- but I kind of liked the ambiguity!    
• There's a sequel coming out in October! -- "Queen High." :)  

Small pleasures & annoying things

Small pleasures: 

• Not having any appointments or obligations on the agenda for this week, after a very busy schedule last week (other than our usual visit to SIL & Little Great-Nephew -- which is always fun, NOT an obligation!).   
• Getting an out-of-the-blue call on Saturday afternoon to come over to Younger Nephew's townhouse for coffee & dessert with them and BIL & SIL. 
• Being able to walk there in under 10 minutes. (It's close, and it was a beautiful day, not too hot and very little humidity.) 
• Having takeout fish & chips for dinner on Saturday night, for the first time in eons. 
• Not suffering afterwards, as I might have with my gallbladder still intact. (This was kind of a test case!  lol) 
• Reading more books this month than last. 
• Knowing that fall is just around the corner, with (eventual!) relief from the summer heat & humidity we've been experiencing. 

Annoying things: 

• Spending the entire summer either waiting around for surgeries or recovering from them (and staying at home as much as possible to avoid getting covid, which would then further delay things...!), and not being able to get "home" to see my parents for the third summer in a row (and the fourth time in five years).  :(   
• Back to school photos on social media, and parents mourning their kids' departures for college. I'm sorry if this is you, but I just can't relate (and of course the REALLY annoying thing is the reason WHY I just can't relate...!). 
• Seeing the dust build up after not getting the usual housecleaning done last week. :p  
• The bottom faucet/spout in the master bathroom shower cubicle has been dripping for months now. The grout is starting to get mildewed (I scrub it with a bleach cleaner, but because it's never completely dry, it keeps coming back), and sometimes the drip-drip-drip noise from the drain will wake me up at night. :p  
• I asked BIL if he knew a plumber who could do a small fix -- and of course he thought he could do it himself -- but he still hasn't come over, and dh (who is not in the least bit handy) is reluctant to ask him again. Sigh. 
• Apparently the bottom shower faucet/spout is not a "thing" everywhere??  I thought maybe it was a Canadian vs American thing, but I did some Googling, and it's not required in the building code, and I found discussion threads where other Canadians claim they've never seen it either. (See here, here and here.)  I think I'd rather have it than not (even if it does drip!). 
• (Also apparently some people call this thing a "toe tester." Who knew?? -- But that's exactly what it's most handy for! as well as filling buckets.) 
• Not being able to think of anything else for a #MicroblogMondays post. ;)  

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

"Sarah Morris Remembers" by D.E. Stevenson

I wanted a nice, easy, cozy, "comfort" read while recuperating from my recent gallbladder removal surgery -- nothing too challenging. I knew a D.E. Stevenson novel would fit the bill very nicely (lol), and my online DES group will be starting our chapter-by-chapter reading and discussion of "Sarah Morris Remembers" shortly, so the choice was clear! And it was a pretty good choice all round.  

Our narrator, Sarah, looks back on her life, growing up in the period between the two world wars in England, the daughter of a kind, wise Anglican vicar, with two older brothers, Lewis and Willy, and a spoiled younger sister, Lottie. When Lewis brings his friend Charles Reeder home from school, Sarah falls instantly in love with him, and as she grows up, Charles declares his love for her too. But the war intervenes before they can be married, and Charles must return to his home in Austria to try to free his father, who has been taken into custody by the Nazis. Then he too disappears, and Sarah must try to build a new life for herself in London while she waits for the war to end and to learn what happened to Charles...

The book starts slowly, but by the time we got to the war and London, midway through, I was hooked. As usual with DES, the lesser characters in particular are well drawn and add so much to the enjoyment of the book. I particularly loved Sarah's father and Scottish grandparents, and her cynical, mechanically minded brother Willy.  

This book was first published in 1966, and there are a few details that set it apart from other DES novels set during the war that were actually written during the 1940s. For example (SPOILER ALERT),  when their wedding plans are thwarted, Sarah & Charles decide to (*cough*) pretend they're already married for a night before Charles returns to Europe (although the details are left to our imaginations). And Sarah's spoiled sister Lottie finds herself pregnant and hints at wanting an abortion (although the word itself is not used, and she does not follow through on her threats). As one Goodreads reviewer noted, there's no way DES would have written about these things in the 1940s (even though we know these kinds of things happened then too). 

As usual, there are connections here to several other DES books and characters:  there are visits to Sarah's grandparents in Ryddelton, in Scotland (the setting for several other DES novels we've covered in recent years). The girls go to school at St. Elizabeth's near Larchester, which also figures in other DES books, most notably "Charlotte Fairlie."  Sarah spends time perfecting her French by boarding with the Deslormes family in Nivennes, France, who also make an appearance in "Still Glides the Stream," and Charles is friends with Bob Loudon, whose wife, Elspeth, is a friend of Hester's in the Mrs. Tim books. Thematically, Sarah's spoiled sister, Lottie, follows in similar footsteps of other memorable DES spoiled siblings, including Helen from "Anna & Her Daughters," which we just finished reading, and Kitty from "The Young Clementina." And of course, I was reminded of some of DES's other novels set partly or fully during the war years, in particular "The English Air," whose hero, Frank (similar to Charles), is half German and half British.  (I've read all these books and reviewed them here on this blog, all tagged "D.E. Stevenson (author)."

At the moment, the sequel to this book, "Sarah's Cottage," is not (yet?) on our planned list of upcoming reads. I may have to tackle it soon myself!   

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 on Goodreads.  

This was Book #36 read to date in 2022 (and Book #5 finished in August), bringing me to 80% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 7 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."