Christmas week odds & ends

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 Then I started getting some posts out of date order, including some dated July 2020 (!!).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

"Sarah Morris Remembers" by D.E. Stevenson (re-read)

My online D.E. Stevenson group has just finished our chapter-by-chapter reading and discussion of "Sarah Morris Remembers," which I read on my own first, back in August (and reviewed here). The book was first published in 1966, and is narrated by the title character, Sarah, as she looks back on her life.  

Sarah and her siblings -- two older brothers and a spoiled younger sister -- grow up in a pastoral setting in England in the period between the wars, the children of the local vicar.  When brother Lewis brings his friend home from school -- an Austrian named Charles Reeder -- Sarah's life changes forever:  she falls instantly in love with Charles, and develops an interest in learning to speak other languages (which comes in very handy later in her life). 

As Sarah grows up, Charles declares his love for her too. But the war intervenes before they can be married, and Charles returns home to try to free his father, who has been imprisoned by the Nazis. Then he disappears too. Sarah and her father move to London to help with the war effort, meet new people and have many new adventures, but thoughts of Charles are never far from her mind... 

Stevenson's wartime novels are among her best. I'll admit this one started slowly, but it hit its stride and got more interesting once the war began. While the story revolves around Sarah & her romance with Charles, there are plenty of subplots involving the lesser characters that added to my enjoyment of the book. And this re-read was enhanced by the discussion with the group members. There are a couple of plot points here that set this one apart from most other DES novels, which made for some lively discussion and speculation at times! 

My original rating stands -- 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 on Goodreads.  

There's a sequel to this book, "Sarah's Cottage," which will likely be on our reading list for the new year. Our first book for 2023, however, will be "The Empty World" -- a change of pace from DES's usual light romances.  It's a dystopian sci-fi thriller, first published in 1936 and set in 1973 Scotland.  

This was Book #50 read to date in 2022 (and Book #4 finished in December), bringing me to 111% 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."  

"Legend in Green Velvet" by Elizabeth Peters

I had another book in mind to start reading this past weekend on the westbound flight to visit my family over Christmas holidays... but I set it aside in favour of a real "comfort (re)read" for me, and one I've been meaning to re-read for a long time now -- one of my favourite novels by one of my favourite authors, Elizabeth Peters (whose real name was Barbara Mertz, and who also wrote thrillers under the name Barbara Michaels). I've written before on this blog about my long love of Peters/Michaels and her books -- including how seeing her speak and getting her to sign a special copy of her book for me in November 1998 was a welcome distraction in my post-stillbirth grief. 

Peters (who died in 2013) was probably best known for her Amelia Peabody books, about the adventures of a feisty Egyptologist and her family in the late 1800s/early 1900s, but she had two other series that were also a lot of fun -- about Vicky Bliss, an American historian working in a German museum, and Jacqueline Kirby, librarian turned romance novelist -- plus a lot of standalone books too. 

I first remember reading -- and love, love, loving -- "Legend in Green Velvet" when I was in high school, from our local library. I later bought a paperback version -- which I still have (it survived the pre-condo move book purge!) -- and have a digital edition on my e-reader as well (which is the one I had with me on the plane). It was published in 1976, when I was 15 years old and deeply immersed in my teenaged Bay City Rollers mania, with an adjacent obsession with all things Scottish -- which might explain why I remember it with such great fondness. ;)  

Our young American heroine, Susan, has also been obsessed with Scotland and Scottish history and legends her entire life -- and now she's scraped together enough money to spend the summer in Scotland, working on an archeological dig in the Highlands. It's a dream come true for her. But shortly after her arrival in Edinburgh, a strange old man slips her a cryptic message -- then her hotel room is ransacked -- and Susan finds herself being framed for murder, and on the run with a handsome (if rather cynical) young Scottish laird -- who (once he reluctantly shaves his lavish beard) bears a striking resemblance to a certain well-known public figure (then and now -- who was, at the time, one of the world's most eligible bachelors). This becomes a running joke throughout the book.   

I hadn't re-read this book in years. It's not very long, but it took me longer to get through than I expected (because life, Christmas prep, aging parents...).  It's a light read, full of lessons about Scotland and its history, and (as with most Peters novels) a lot of humour along with the action. (Romance too!) It's dated in many respects, but I still enjoyed it and (for me) it was the perfect way to kick off the holidays. :) 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #49 read to date in 2022 (and Book #3 finished in December), bringing me to 109% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books! I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

#MicroblogMondays: Last Christmas?

(Posted on Tuesday!)

(Hey, it's been that kind of week...) 

We made it to my parents' house in western Canada his past weekend for the holidays. My sister & her partner picked us up, and before we headed out of the city to the small town where Mom & Dad live (about 45-60 minutes away), we got a tour of the house they bought & moved into this fall.  It's not huge, and the decor, plumbing, electrical and heating systems are absolute vintage late 1950s-70s -- i.e., it needs work! -- but it's bigger than the tiny house they were living in, and it has a nice layout, with three bedrooms upstairs and one down, three bathrooms (albeit just one a full bathroom with tub/shower) and a finished basement (classic 1960s wood panelling & bar). It's also in a great location, a short walk away from transit and a small older mall that includes a grocery store, hardware store, movie theatre, restaurants and an EXCELLENT and independent! mega-bookstore (one of the best in Canada). It's big enough for the two of them to comfortably host dh & me and our parents next year for Christmas -- which she is determined to do. 

"This has to be the last Christmas at Mom & Dad's," she confided to us as we headed out of the city. "They just can't handle all the fuss and all the cooking any more, especially for an extended period of time -- but as long as we're at their house, they are not going to give up control and take a backseat." 

(My parents have control issues. Case in point: before settling in on the couch for a pre-supper nap, my father got dinner into the oven -- and then gave me a long list of instructions on turning down the oven (when & to what temperature) and when to add the potatos for baking -- including how to start them off in the microwave, with strict instructions on how many to put in at one time and exactly when I should turn them over to ensure they cooked more evenly. HE INSISTED THAT I WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. Did I mention I will be 62 years old in less than a month's time??)  

Will they agree to relinquish control and have Christmas at my sister's house next year?  I don't know. I guess only time will tell...!  

When I was growing up, we spent some Christmases with my grandparents in my mother's hometown in Minnesota, and some wherever it was we were living at the time -- five different towns in two different provinces before I graduated high school -- but wherever we were, my maternal grandfather (often, but not always, accompanied by my grandmother) would always come to be with us. (We also spent one Christmas, 1976, with my uncle and his family in Minneapolis. That was after my great-uncle -- my grandmother's youngest brother, who lived with her and my grandfather all his life -- passed away suddenly at the far-too-young age of 59.  I guess the adults decided a change in scenery was in order that year.) 

I would have to check my photo albums to verify this, but I think the last Christmas we spent at my grandparents' house was in the late 1970s or early 1980s, when I was finishing high school/in university. After that, my grandparents always came to be with us, and in later years, when driving distances got to be harder for them, someone would drive down and pick them up (about 1.5 hours away) and then bring then back home again after the holidays were over. I don't remember how old they were when my grandfather stopped driving to my parents' house, but they were probably in their mid/late 70s. Our last Christmas with Grandpa was 1997 (when he was 85); we had one more Christmas with Grandma (1998) before she too was gone. 1998 was also our first Christmas without the little girl we had thought would be arriving that November. 

My parents are now 81 (almost 82) and 83.   

I think, in the back of my mind, I always hoped that when I had kids of my own, my parents & sister would come to spend Christmas with US, at least once in a while. I even bought some plastic Christmas-themed plates & glasses in anticipation of the day.  But the kids never materialized, and neither has my family at Christmastime -- or many other times, to be honest. My mom almost always used to come visit us at least once a year when she was working, during spring break (she worked in a school and retired in 2006 -- her last visit was in 2008), but my dad has only come three times in 37 years (most recently for Katie's funeral in August 1998)(!).  My sister and her partner have visited me exactly once, in November1989 -- and the prime attraction was not me but the Grey Cup football game they had tickets for, lol. I suspect things might have been different, had we had kids -- but we didn't, and so we've always been the ones to travel at this time of year.  

My parents moved to this house in 1984, when I was just finishing up graduate school, and I lived here with them for a year afterward, until I got married.  This will be the 39th Christmas we've all spent together in this house, with the single exception of 2020 (and you all know why...!). Change is hard, but we've done it before -- albeit not for quite a long time...!  My sister & I know it is coming, again, sooner or later... 

I don't know what the future holds, or where we'll all be next Christmas -- but I'm going to enjoy this one, here & now, while & how I can.  

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

Pre-travel odds & ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    (Beware the comments!)  

"Killers of a Certain Age" by Deanna Raybourn

I think it was Mel who flagged "Killers of a Certain Age" by Deanna Raybourn on Goodreads as a "want to read" pick -- and as soon as I read the premise, I knew that it was something I wanted to read too. :)  

This book reminded me a little of Richard Osman's "Thursday Murder Club" books -- but with a slightly younger and all-female cast of main characters.  And, oh yeah, THEY are the ones doing the killing.  All four women -- Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie -- have spent the past 40 years working together as a crack team of highly trained elite assassins for a secretive organization known as "the Museum," which had its beginnings in the aftermath of the Second World War.  After hunting down surviving Nazis, the organization turned its attention to ridding the world of dictators, drug lords, arms dealers, etc. 

Now about 60 years old -- all childless -- our four heroines have recently retired and are celebrating on an exclusive luxury cruise, courtesy of the organization they have served so faithfully and so well for so long. But then! Billie -- cooling off from a hot flash in a walk-in freezer (lol) -- spots the familiar face of a fellow operative on board, disguised in a staff uniform. They soon realize that THEY are his targets. But who ordered the hit on them, and why?  

The story is told mostly from Billie's point of view, and jumps back & forth between the present day and the past, beginning in late 1970s, when the quartet were new recruits and trainees. 

I found this book irresistible, just from reading the description, and it mostly lived up to my expectations. All the women were born in or around 1958, making them just a few years older than me (they'd be 64 today)  :)  and were recruited in late 1979, which is when I was starting university. There's some pithy commentary on aging, loss, sexism, retirement and the corporate world... and some laugh-out-loud funny parts too. 

Here's hoping for a sequel!!  

This would make a great movie -- there are fabulous parts for four actresses in their early 60s!  I Googled, and there's a huge list of possibilities for an age-appropriate potential cast. I thought of Jamie Lee Curtis & Emma Thompson right off the bat, but there are many others who would be equally great.  For "The Shepherdess" (the WW2-era assassin who trains the girls), I immediately pictured Vanessa Redgrave, or maybe Judi Dench, or, if neither of them is up it, perhaps Helen Mirren?  

I closed this book with a chuckle (be sure to read to the end of the acknowledgements) and a smile on my face. 5 stars on Goodreads.  

This was Book #48 read to date in 2022 (and Book #2 finished in December), bringing me to 107% 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."  

Odds & ends

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

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

 

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

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