MicroblogMondays: Blogoversary #15 (!)

Fifteen (15)(!!) years ago, on Halloween night in 2007 -- 9 years after the stillbirth of our daughter, and 6 years after my last infertility treatment -- I hit "post" here for the very first time, and started my journey down yet another road less travelled: blogging.  

I'm not sure what more I can say about the past 15 years that I haven't said in my previous years of blogoversary posts. Blogging has been a joy and a release and a comfort, and has brought so much to my life. 

This year hasn't been quite so prolific in blogging terms as 2021 --163 posts so far (not including this one) versus 178 at this time last year. Still, not too shabby...!  Even if I didn't publish another post this year, it would still be my 5th-most productive blogging year out of the past 15!  Somehow, I still keep finding things to write about... and I am very glad that people keep reading and commenting!  

Whether you're new here or whether you've been here the entire time (and I know a few of you have!) -- THANK YOU!  ❤

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Blogging stats, 15 years later:  

 
Number of years blogging: 15

Published posts (including this one): 2,172

Average # of posts per year: 145

Average # of posts per month: 12 

(So far in calendar year 2022, I've published 163 posts -- 164, including this one -- a minimum of 12 posts (in June) and as many as 20 in one month (September).)

Published comments: 11,813 

Page views (all time):  1,262,923 (!!) 

Followers (on Blogger):  151 

Past blogoversary posts here.

First blog post ever here! :) 

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

Weekend odds & ends

• Older Nephew & his wife LOVE Halloween.  They've both taken Monday off work, and Little Great-Nephew will be staying home with them (and going out trick-or-treating later in his Buzz Lightyear costume, which I wrote about here).  "It's like Christmas for them," dh observed.  
• Unlike last year -- LGN's first time out trick-or-treating -- no invitations have been issued to us or to the grandparents. Last year, Halloween was on a Sunday;  this year, it's on a weekday/workday. BIL is still working;  SIL has a part-time job on top of looking after LGN during the day, and Older Nephew lives an hour away from us. Logistically, it would be pretty difficult to make the trip. (But if they'd asked, we'd have been there...!) 
• As a longtime Agatha Christie fan, I couldn't resist this article about two friends who started a podcast, where they would "read and rank all of Christie’s 66 mystery novels, and discuss them in exhaustive detail." But it's not just about Agatha, or the podcast. It's a wonderful story (albeit somewhat sad), even if you've never read a Christie book (what?!!). 
• Most of my Christie reading took place when I was a teenager, but I revisited two of the Tommy & Tuppence books in November 2015, in tandem with a British TV series based on them. My reviews of both books & TV versions, here and here.  (I will also swear that I've read "And Then There Were None" within the past decade, but if I did, I didn't write about it on this blog.) 
• From The Atlantic: "Adoption Is Not a Fairy-Tale Ending: It’s a complicated beginning." The author, Erika Hayasaki, has just published a book on identical twins raised in radically different circumstances. Worth a read (and worth sharing with those who tell you that you can always "just adopt").   
• Excerpt: "In America, popular narratives about adoption tend to focus on happy endings. Poor mothers who were predestined to give their children away for a “better life”; unwanted kids turned into chosen ones; made-for-television reunions years later... the reality of adoption is far more complicated than some might think—and, as many adoptees and scholars have argued, deserving of a more clear-eyed appraisal across American culture." 
• I recently mused:  "I've long been fascinated by the idealization of motherhood and the role of "momfluencer" culture, and the power they have to warp women's sense of self-worth. Most writing in this vein, of course, focuses on the pressure this puts on mothers to live up to the ideal -- [but] fails to take the next step and ponder how these unattainable ideals affect those of us who wanted to be mothers and never even got the chance to try to live up them. Still, it's a topic worth pondering." 
• Case in point: Sara Petersen of "In Pursuit of Clean Countertops" interviewed Chelsea Conoboy this week about "How the myth of maternal instinct perpetuates the myth of the Ideal Mother."  They make some excellent points about how the myth began and has been perpetuated (hint: it was created by men, whose Ideal Mother was white), its impact on systemic issues (parental leave and affordable, universal childcare), and how it affects women's experiences of pregnancy, birth and new motherhood.  
• The one glancing nod made to non-mothers here (emphasis mine): "Even before I had specifically targeted maternal instinct as something to be viewed with suspicion if not downright antipathy, as soon as I had my first kid, I knew in my bones that the cultural belief that women are “good” at motherhood (and so should become mothers if they want to be considered “good” people) was a scam." 
• I wish they had expanded more on that thought. I wish they had talked, at least a little, about how damaging the idea of "maternal instinct" can be when you're not a mother AT ALL (for whatever reason) -- the idea that (a) all women want babies, (b) women will stop at nothing to fulfill their dreams of motherhood (and thus, if you wanted children and don't have them, you obviously didn't want them ENOUGH), and (c) if you didn't want babies at all, there's something REALLY wrong with you...!  
• My new KitchenAid stand mixer is here! (The story behind it, here.)  Isn't it gorgeous?? (I will have to test it out soon...!)

My new KitchenAid stand mixer.  :) 

Would you watch?

At the end of my recent review of C.J. Carey's new novel, "Queen High," I mused: 

I think that -- properly done -- "Widowland" and "Queen High" would make a great TV series, a la "The Handmaid's Tale." :)  

And I still think it would.  :)  The visuals alone would be amazing, I think...!  There are important messages in these books that deserve a broader audience. 

But (as we all know, all too well!) "deserving" doesn't always mean getting, unfortunately.  Part of me wonders -- what studio/producer these days would touch this material? And what sort of an audience would it have? 

Yes, there's Rose to focus on as the main heroine -- young, pretty, in love.  But beyond Rose, I would argue that the central heroines of the book are the Friedas of the Widowlands -- the elderly (which, in this book, is defined as 50+!), the widows, the childless -- precisely the segments that our very pronatalist society (and television, and movies) is generally the most uncomfortable with and most apt to ignore. (Nevermind the political messaging of the book, which contains some uncomfortable parallels to current-day events & players...!) 

While "The Handmaid's Tale" does celebrate women's right to decide their own futures and control their own bodies, it is also a celebration of motherhood and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her child(ren). The television series in particular has focused on and expanded on this angle (far beyond the material in Margaret Atwood's original book), and never more so than the last few episodes I've seen this season, with Serena subjecting herself to Handmaid-like conditions in order to be close to her infant son, and June once more willing to risk her freedom in order to be reunited with Hannah. Hollywood -- and society generally -- loves to celebrate youth and fertility, yummy mummies and adorable babies -- not old, childless women in black living in poverty, however literate and brave and resourceful they might be. 

"Old infertile women are the opposite of everything this country stands for," an Alliance official says in "Queen High." "We have a fertility crisis. The nation's crying out for new children. Londinium needs more citizens, not swarms of aged women who live outside society. They serve no purpose. They exist purely for themselves."  Dare I suggest this quote would not sound out of place in some present-day conservative quarters (and not just in the U.S.)?  

Thoughts?  Would you watch? 

If you read this blog, I know you probably would -- but do you think such subject matter would fly with a broader television audience?

"Queen High" by C.J. Carey

(WARNING:  This review contains some mild spoilers related to the outcome of the first book in this series, "Widowland.")  

"Queen High" by C.J. Carey is the sequel to "Widowland," which I read (and loved) at this time last year and reviewed here. :)  It was released on Oct. 13th in the U.K. (in hardcover), but it won't be available in North America until next July (2023)(and under a different title too -- "The Last Queen").  (Personally, having now read the book, I think "Queen High" is a much better title -- but, not my decision...!) It will be interesting to see whether the North American version has any significant text changes, when it's published next summer. ("Widowland" did! -- and most of the material in the epilogue that was tacked onto the North American edition does show up in "Queen High.") 

I decided I didn't want to wait nine months -- so I splurged and ordered a copy from Amazon UK. :)  It was delivered the same day I arrived home from visiting my parents, and I started reading it as soon as I finished the book I had already started, "Magpie Murders" (reviewed here).

To recap/set the stage: both "Widowland" and "Queen High" take place in Britain in the 1950s -- a Britain that capitulated to/formed an "alliance" with Nazi Germany in 1940 and has been operating under a "Protectorate" since then. Memories of "the Time Before" are fading (and are, in fact, being deliberately suppressed), spies/informants are everywhere, and (shades of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale") women have been classified according to age, heritage, reproductive status and physical attributes, which determines where they live, the rations they receive, the clothes they wear, the kind of work they do, etc. The lowest of the low are the "Friedas" -- childless women and widows over 50 years of age, who eke out a subsistence living in the walled-off slums known as "Widowlands." (I would certainly recommend reading "Widowland" first -- you will get a much better picture of who the characters are, the world they live in and what's happened so far.)  

"Widowland" ended with the assassination of "the Leader" (i.e., Hitler) -- referred to as "the Event" -- and a bit of a cliffhanger as to the fate of our highly ranked heroine, Rose Ransom, who played a key role in his death. As "Queen High" opens, we learn that (somewhat improbably), Rose survived and returned to her job in the Ministry of Culture. (Of course, there wouldn't be a sequel if she hadn't, right?)  

It's two years later (1955), and Rose is now a Poet Hunter -- poetry being a particularly degenerate art form that has now been completely banned. Additionally, she's been tasked with a special assignment: to go to Buckingham Palace and interview Queen Wallis, the American-born widow of the late King Edward VIII, and prepare a briefing document prior to the upcoming visit of President and Mrs. Eisenhower of the United States -- the first such visit since the Alliance was formed, which will culminate in the signing of a new treaty between the two nations. Overshadowing the upcoming visit: the recent murder of a high-ranking SS officer.    

I won't give away anything more of the plot -- and there's a lot going on in this book -- but suffice to say that, as with "Widowland," this was a fast, absorbing read, with tension mounting as the the date of the Eisenhower visit draws near and the various plot elements converge. We get to find out more about what has happened to many of the characters we first met in "Widowland" -- including the Friedas.  I started reading on Sunday night, zoomed through about 3/4 of it yesterday and finished it off this afternoon.   

As I observed with "Widowland," there have been other dystopian novels based on the premise of the Nazis winning WWII, and others focusing on controlling women and fertility.  And I noticed that certain elements of the plot, plot structure & pacing of both "Widowland" and this book were very similar. 

Nevertheless -- Carey does an amazing job of combining dystopian elements together with feminism, patriotism, and the subversive power of literature. (I loved how Rose procrastinates at her job, knowing that once she's "corrected" a book, the one remaining original copy will be destroyed. She's saving her favourite, Jane Austen's "Persuasion," for last. She sneaks peeks at a copy of "Jane Eyre" that's hidden in the carved-out pages of a Victorian book on birds at the library.)  

It's a pretty heady mixture that deserves an audience in these increasingly authoritarian times. There's a lot here that will sound ominously familiar and relevant. I particularly found "Queen High" interesting in its depiction of an authoritarian society after the omnipresent Leader is gone, and how the world he's created carries on and evolves without him (and, in some ways, gets worse...).  Also what it has to say about history and cultural memory (and forgetting)... who gets to tell our stories, and how... writers versus "Content Providers" (!)... oh, so much...!

I was debating, as I read through the book, whether or not I could give this book 5 stars. Then I got to the last few pages, which had me reaching for kleenex, for multiple reasons. Let's just say it's a very timely book that meant a lot to me personally, in many ways. (I am SO itching to discuss it with someone!)

5 wholehearted stars on Goodreads.

I think that -- properly done -- "Widowland" and "Queen High" would make a great TV series, a la "The Handmaid's Tale." :)  

This was Book #41 read to date in 2022 (and Book #3 finished in October), bringing me to 91% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

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As a childless woman of a (*cough!*) certain age, I found this passage particularly chilling -- especially when I learned, later in the book, what the (fictional) regime has planned for the country's Widowlands and their residents. (You might be able to hazard a guess, knowing what we know about the real-life Nazis and places like the Warsaw Ghetto...)  

"Speer thinks, though, and I agree with him, that the Widowlands are festering sinks for dissent. Old infertile women are the opposite of everything this country stands for. We have a fertility crisis. The nation's crying out for new children. Londinium needs more citizens, not swarms of aged women who live outside society. They serve no purpose. They exist purely for themselves."  (p.109)

(Of course, the Nazis of the book helped to create the fertility crisis by killing off so many men and shipping off the ones remaining to the continent to work in labour camps, right?  But, I digress...)   

#MicroblogMondays: Adult Halloween

A childless-not-by-choice friend (and former blogger) posted this on Facebook this weekend and asked "Is this a thing yet? I post this every year and I'm still waiting for it to be a thing." 

A couple of her (mom) friends commented that they hand out wine to the parents of the trick-or-treaters that come to their door... or they have neighbours who do so (!). I remember hearing about this a few years ago and thinking "Oh, great... one more thing we get to miss out on/get ripped off on, just because we don't have kids!" 

Right?  

But then, when I thought about it... I remembered that on a few occasions over the years, my mom & one of her friends used to dress up on Halloween and go to a couple of the neighbours' doors for some "liquid" treats. In some cases, they were masked and didn't identify themselves -- just carried glasses and a sign, asking to have their glasses filled!  

Has anyone ever tried this (or something like it)? 

Why should parents & kids have all the fun, right?  ;) 

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

"Magpie Murders" by Anthony Horowitz

"Magpie Murders" by Anthony Horowitz has been on my "want to read" list for some time now. It moved to the top of the TBR pile when I heard that a multi-part television adaptation was coming to PBS this month, and I started reading it on the flight home from visiting my parents, one week ago. I didn't finish the book before the series launched that evening (I only covered about 20% during the flight -- and I like to read before I watch, if at all possible), but that was okay.  The TV show is airing at the same time as Stanley Tucci's "Searching for Italy" on CNN, AND "Bob's Burgers" on Fox  -- both Sunday night viewing favourites of ours -- as well as occasional Pittsburgh Steelers games -- a priority for dh...!  Luckily, my PVR can record up to four programs at once...!  ;)  

Anyway -- this was the first Horowitz book I've read, but it won't be the last.  (He's written a sequel, "Moonflower Murders" -- which just moved up in my "want to read" pile -- as well as other mysteries that look like good reads.)  

As the story opens, an unnamed book editor, writing/narrating in the first person (we later learn her name is Susan Ryeland), receives and starts reading a new manuscript that's about to change her life. It's written by her publishing house's star author, Alan Conway -- the latest installment in his bestselling murder mystery series, set in post-WWII Britain and featuring Atticus Pund, a German detective and concentration camp survivor, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. 

At this point, the story shifts -- and we get to read Conway's manuscript along with Susan. But she -- and we -- are irritated to find the final chapter(s) of the book, revealing the identity of the murderer and the motive -- is missing. And then, almost immediately, comes some startling news:  Conway is dead.  As Susan investigates what might have happened to the missing chapter(s), she comes to believe there's something suspicious about Conway's tragic death... and the more she investigates, the more fact and fiction begin to intertwine... 

In many ways, this is a very traditional British murder mystery, as well as a celebration of the genre. (Also an analysis and a critique of it.)(I will admit to being a fan -- I read tons of Agatha Christie when I was growing up!) But the "gimmick" of the dual/intertwined murder mysteries makes this one unique -- and it's very well executed. Great writing, and great characters. It's lots of fun, and I enjoyed it tremendously. As someone who is childless not by choice, I also appreciated that Susan is in her late 40s, unmarried and childless (and that she includes a couple of brief reflections on that status in this book, particularly in contrast to her sister, whose name is -- wait for it -- Katie).  ;)  

5 stars on Goodreads. 

I'll report on what I think of the PBS series, once I watch it. 

This was Book #40 read to date in 2022 (and Book #2 finished in October), bringing me to 89% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 4 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

A few midweek odds & ends

• Annoying thing:  I received an email from Air Miles Canada yesterday, noting that there hadn't been any activity in my account in more than 21 months. They informed me that unless I accumulated some more points, cashed them in or transferred them to another collector (at a cost of 15 cents per mile) by end of day Dec. 29th, they will suspend my account -- and I will lose the 8,200+ air miles that I've painstakingly accumulated over the past 30 (yes, 30!) years.  (It's not a huge amount... but I've earned every one of them!) 
• Ummm, hello... pandemic??  There were long stretches of time in 2020 & 2021 when there wasn't much to leave the house for, even if I'd wanted to. Cumulatively, Ontario's stores & restaurants were closed longer than almost anywhere else in the world -- so there weren't many places I could go to spend money and accumulate points, even if I'd wanted to. And of course, travel anywhere was restricted for most of that time as well. 
• Plus, many of the places where I used to shop and accumulate points either don't have outlets in this community (versus our former one -- our regular supermarket there, for example, offered Air Miles -- and still does, I think? -- but has no stores in our vicinity) -- or they aren't affiliated with Air Miles any more.   
• I WAS NOT IMPRESSED.  :p  
• I had a look at what I could get with the miles I have. There wasn't a lot I could do with them in terms of travel -- not that we're very keen on travel at the moment anyway. I looked to see if they would cover our plane tickets home for Christmas (a relatively short trip) -- and the answer was no.  :p  
• So -- I wound up cashing in about 6400 points on a Kitchen Aid stand mixer (metallic chrome and stainless steel). I've always wanted one, but just made do with a hand mixer. It should be here within four weeks -- in time for me to do some Christmas baking, maybe?  ;)  
• A couple of weeks ago, we returned to the mall for the first time in eons in search of two new carry-on suitcases for our trip. (We found them.) I also found a new black purse at Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) -- the first purse I've bought since the pandemic began. My current purse, a black Baci, which I started using early on in the pandemic (or possibly just before it began? -- late 2019/early 2020), was starting to look kind of ragged around the edges (which I found incredibly puzzling, given the simple fact that we haven't really GONE anywhere for the past 2 & 1/2 years...!). The zipper has also started jamming with increasing frequency. 
• Anyway, I bought the new purse (this one) and brought it home, but decided to keep using my old/current one until after we got back from our trip west (since by now I'm very familiar with what's where, etc., and figured that would help me get through airport security faster). For the time being, I decided to stash my new one in the plastic bin where I keep all my spare handbags. 
• Needless to say I was embarrassed to find not just one, not just two, but THREE MORE/OTHER never-used black purses stashed there (plus a couple of brown, beige and white ones for good measure...!). Oops. I tend to be quite picky about my purses -- I like them large (but not TOO large, because then I'll fill it up, and I don't want to weigh myself down or throw out my shoulder...), with lots of compartments and pockets for stashing/organizing my stuff -- so when I see something I like, I tend to buy it, because I can sometimes go for quite a while before I see something that suits me. 
• With four (!) black purses to choose from, I decided to put the newest purse aside for now and instead use a black Vince Camuto that I bought pre-pandemic. It has three compartments, which I like -- albeit not quite enough pockets to suit me. (The others had fewer compartments but more pockets... sigh...)  I've transferred my things over from my old purse, and we'll see how this one works out...!   
• Two other past purse-related posts: here (2010) and here (2019). 
• More brilliant writing and analysis from Yael Wolfe: not just one but TWO amazing pieces in the same week!  
• First, she acknowledges the painful fact that, not only is it possible we might not get what we want, "You Deserve It…and You Still Might Not Get It."  "What makes us worthy when external validation fails us?" she muses in the subheading.  (Her conclusion: "You have to know your worth in your heart and be satisfied with that." Sometimes easier said than done, of course...) 
• More recently, she pondered the question of "Why Childless Women Inspire Superstitious Sentiment:  Are you sure it’s all part of God’s plan?"  Trust me, you really need to read the whole thing -- but here's a taste of what she has to say:  

If you want to make someone uncomfortable, tell them that you’re childless. Tell them you wanted a child quite badly but it “just didn’t happen” and watch them squirm.

I never uttered these words with the intention of making someone uncomfortable, mind you. But sharing my story and seeing people consistently respond in this manner has been fascinating. As far as I can tell, there is little else that makes people as uncomfortable as hearing someone admit they are childless by circumstance... 

The problem is, our grief is eclipsed in a moment like this by someone else’s feelings. You see, a childless woman never enters a space alone. Along with her comes a companion that people who were able to become mothers don’t want to acknowledge: the precarious uncertainty of life.

And no one — absolutely no one — wants to be reminded of that.

• (And if you think that simply being childless makes people uncomfortable, try telling them you're childless after loss... that you never got that "rainbow baby" that everyone assured you would happen for you and make everything better -- not that any child needs the burden of that role in life, of course...!)