#MicroblogMondays: Waiting...

Younger Nephew's wife is now one week past her due date -- which of course makes me VERY nervous.  :(  They went to the hospital this morning at 8 a.m. to be induced.   

Little Great-Nephew (Older Nephew's son) is at BIL & SIL's house today -- and we are on standby as babysitters. If LGN is still there when they get the call that the baby is here,  dh & I will be high-tailing it over to their house to stay with LGN until his dad (Older Nephew) picks him up after work later this afternoon, so that BIL & SIL can go straight to the hospital ASAP to meet their new grandchild. We likely won't get to meet him/her until tomorrow at the earliest (assuming he/she is born today). (It's probably just as well -- both dh & I have slight colds... grrrr... took a rapid test this morning, and it was negative, but still...!) 

Dh said BIL sounded like he expected the baby to be here by 8:15 this morning. (Major LOL.)  (It's now 10 a.m. as I type -- no news yet.)  He should know better;  Older Nephew arrived after an induction, and I think LGN did too? --  and it took hours. In Older Nephew's wife's case, it took all day -- and both pregnancies ended with C-sections -- hopefully that won't happen today...!  BIL is already incensed because he wanted to be RIGHT THERE in the waiting room when the baby is born, but they told him he's not allowed. They were able to be there when LGN was born, but I imagine protocols have changed since covid, etc.  

Please keep our family in your thoughts today. 

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

*** *** *** 

Update, Monday night:  We have a new GREAT-NIECE!!  More to come, possibly tomorrow.  :)  

"Lessons in Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus

"Lessons in Chemistry" is the first novel by Bonnie Garmus, published when she was 64 years old! (She's now 66.)(There's hope for me yet!!  lol)    

Our heroine, Elizabeth Zott, is a brilliant female chemist, clearly superior in talent to her male bosses and coworkers. Unfortunately, this is the sexist and restrictive 1950s. She and fellow chemist (and Nobel Prize nominee) Calvin Evans "meet cute" -- and although she initially resists his advances, the chemistry between the two of them is undeniable and explosive. 

Elizabeth's knowledge of chemistry gets put to use in an unexpected setting: after losing her laboratory job, she becomes the unlikely television host of an afternoon cooking show, Supper at Six, where she delivers chemistry lessons along with the recipe of the day ("cooking is chemistry," she says) and a side dish of subversive messages to a receptive audience of dissatisfied housewives.  

I found myself thinking, early on, that Elizabeth's character was just a WEE bit unrealistic. She's far more 2023 in her mindset and attitudes than 1950s/early 1960s (even for the feminists of the time, I think).  Many of the male characters were almost comically sexist and villainous. Also a little hard to swallow: Six-Thirty, Elizabeth's uber-intelligent dog (notwithstanding my doubts, he's probably my favourite character in the book), and Elizabeth's ultra-precocious daughter, Mad, who reads Nabokov and Norman Mailer at age 4 (!). In a way, the whole story is something of a fairy tale. 

Which is not to say it's not good.  After a while, I decided to just suspend my disbelief and go with the flow.  

In the end, I very much enjoyed "Lessons in Chemistry." It's a much more substantial read than the cutesy "chick-lit" cover design would suggest -- some serious messages, and some sad stuff too -- but it was still lots of fun (and laugh-out-loud funny in parts) too.  The writing is wonderful. I'll look forward to reading more from Garmus in the future!  

Content warnings: sexual assault, pregnancy, sexism/misogyny/pronatalism (i.e., the deeply ingrained attitudes of the time that Elizabeth battles), grief and loss. 

I debated over the rating for this one... I didn't QUITE feel like I could give it 5 stars, given the caveats mentioned above -- but at the same time, I really did like it. I settled on 4.5, rounded down to 4 stars on Goodreads 

This was Book #10 read to date in 2023 (and Book #4 finished in February), bringing me to 22% of my 2023 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 2023 tagged as "2023 books."  

Odds & ends

• The Springsteen tickets saga (part one here): I got an email last night that I was NOT among the select few to be granted Verified Fan status, which would allow me the opportunity to TRY to buy pre-sale tickets when they became available today. I was on the "waitlist."  "If tickets remain available to sell after the initially selected fans have shopped, we will use a lottery-style selection to invite Verified Fans from the waitlist to shop," the email said. ("If tickets remain available" -- yeah, right...!)   
• My sister offered to try to get us tickets for the Winnipeg show on Nov. 10th, if we wanted. It's one thing to go all that way to see Paul McCartney, when he was not playing Toronto on the same tour, but Bruce IS playing two shows in Toronto, a few days later. And it's one thing to spend the money to fly to Winnipeg in October, when the weather might still be fairly nice, to spend Canadian Thanksgiving with my family (especially when we haven't been there in the summertime)... it's another to to there in mid-November, when the weather is far more iffy, and when (hopefully) we will have already been there in the summer, and will be back again a little more than a month later for Christmas.  We thanked her, but decided to pass. 
• Dh (the original Springsteen fan in the family) was not interested, even for the Toronto shows. "Why are you even TRYING to get on the list for tickets?" he said to me. "You don't even want to eat in a restaurant, and you're going to sit in a crowded arena with 20,000 people??"  Good point. :(  
• I actually DID get an email with an access code around 11:15 this morning. I couldn't resist logging in and seeing what was available (and at what prices). There were only 27 people in line ahead of me, and I got in almost right away. By then, there were a few pairs of seats remaining at the back of the arena in the upper rows of the 100 level (at about $350 a pop -- which is about what my sister & I paid to see Paul McCartney & Elton John in Winnipeg a few years ago -- expensive enough, but not too bad). There were also some seats priced around $100 each, but they were all in the nosebleed section, at the sides of the stage and behind it. 
• I closed the window. In a different, covid-free world, it would have been nice to see Bruce again, but...  I wish I was a more adventurous person, but I'm not (and am certainly less so since stillbirth and infertility, not to mention three years of living through a pandemic...!).    
• The Bloglovin' saga:  Aside from the odd blip when some current posts pop up, it's basically been unavailable since (at least) early December. (Not much has changed since I wrote this post a month ago.)  Most of the ALI-related blogs I follow are listed on the blogrolls on the right-hand side of this page, so I've managed to keep up with most of them that way, but there are other non-ALI blogs I follow that I am hopelessly out of touch with now.
• I did export & save a file with my Bloglovin' content about a year ago, thinking I might try Feedly -- only to find out (as I described here) that Feedly doesn't let you follow more than 100 blogs at a time (unless you cough up money for a paid subscription). I currently have more than (gulp) 500 blogs on Bloglovin (albeit not all of them active). I declined to pay up back then, but I'm starting to reconsider... 
• Dh & I joined SIL, BIL & Little Great-Nephew last week for the weekly toddler storytime session at the local library (!). SIL took LGN there regularly this past year, but this was his first time back there since before Christmas, and the first time we'd ventured there to watch.  I was surprisingly OK with it all (albeit I suspect 20 years ago, it would have been a different story...). There were lots of grandparents there -- we were far from the only greyhairs, lol -- and it was fun to watch LGN interacting with other children (albeit sometimes I wanted to watch through my fingers, lol -- like when an excited LGN, running around the room, hopped over another toddler who was lying flat on the floor...!).  
• We arrived a few minutes after the session started, and when LGN saw us, he exclaimed to SIL (his grandma), "Uncle [dh] is here!" and started jumping up & down in delight. What a boost to the ego...!  ;)  
• (We were the only two people in the building wearing masks.) 
• Another LGN story:  He was also at his grandparents' house another day last week. SIL went to work in the late afternoon. BIL hasn't been feeling 100% lately and didn't want to be left with LGN by himself, so dh & I went over to keep them company until Older Nephew picked up LGN on his way home from work. 
• LGN LOVES being at his grandparents' house (who wouldn't love to be the focus of so much spoiling??), and does NOT like it when it's time to go home -- and especially when his dad is the one doing pickup! (Poor Older Nephew -- after a long day of work, too!)  He saw his dad come in and immediately dove under the kitchen table.  Older Nephew had to grab his ankles and drag him out, lol. I said, "Awww, LGN -- but you've been such a good boy all day!"  I helped Older Nephew as he struggled to put on LGN's winter jacket and boots. "[LGN], come on, you're being bad!" he said to his son in exasperation. LGN looked up at us, puzzled, the very image of innocence, and said, "But... Aunt Lori says I'm a good boy??"  I still crack up when I think about it. (I said, "Yes, you ARE a good boy, but you're going to have to be good for a while longer for Daddy!")  
• I was interested in the Notes From Three Pines Readalong, which Mel told us about a few weeks ago. I thought it was a great nudge to dive into Louise Penny's highly acclaimed Inspector Gamache mystery series, which I've been meaning to do for a while now, and I enjoy discussing books with others, in person or online. I recently finished and reviewed the first book in the series, "Still Life," here, just in time for the discussion for that particular book, which started today. 
• However!  (and beware, if you were thinking of joining in too): several of the posted discussion questions related to the series as a whole (i.e., it's assumed you've already read the other books) -- and one question in particular included a huge spoiler about what happens to one of the characters from the first book, later on in the series. 
• I know there's a lot of debate over how long we're expected to keep spoilers secret in an uber-connected world (especially related to movies & TV series). But both my D.E. Stevenson & L.M. Montgomery book groups make a point of asking people to be careful about revealing spoilers related to future chapters or future volumes in a series, out of consideration for those in the group (and there are some, alongside longtime, rabid fans) who haven't read the book before, or later books in the series.(If/when we do, we're expected to post a **SPOILERS!** warning.) And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are also reading the book(s) for the first time, after the new "Three Pines" TV series debuted recently on Amazon Prime. 
• I'll keep reading the series, and probably within the timeframes of the readalong (as I said, it's a good nudge!) -- but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to participate under the circumstances? Which is somewhat disappointing. :(   
• Next up: Gamache #2, "A Fatal Grace," on March 22nd. 
• "Titanic" (the movie) turns 25 this year (!). (And it's back in theatres!)  I was reminded of this by Meg Conley's recent post about the movie in her Homeculture newsletter on Substack.  I was not obsessed with the movie, or Leo diCaprio -- I was 37 years old by then, after all -- but I did enjoy it. Those incredibly realistic-looking long shots of that magnificent, doomed ship leaving port and steaming out to sea for the first and last time had me in tears, and yes, I cried at the end too. Dh was not interested in seeing it, so I went with my mother when she came to visit me that year, during her spring break, and not long before it won all the Oscars. 
• Did I mention I was pregnant at the time?  (As I wrote in this blog about the experience, 10 years after the fact, "I can't believe I sat through the entire 3+ hours without having to duck out to the washroom." lol)
• This article from the Globe & Mail (originally published last October and referenced again in a recent newsletter) stuck in my childless craw:  "What if moms decided to ‘quiet quit’?" It opens with the story of the one-day women's strike in October 1975 in Iceland -- known as "Women's Day Off" (note: WOMEN'S), in which 90% of Icelandic women walked off the job, both in the office and at home -- and then asks "What would happen if the moms of the world decided to embrace the idea of “quiet quitting” and refused to do the extras?"  
• Great point -- BUT! Throughout the article, the terms "women" and "moms" are used almost interchangeably (with "moms" the dominant reference).  I rather doubt that, even in 1975, 90% of all adult women in Iceland were mothers... 
• I don't doubt that moms are depleted, as the article suggests... but they are certainly not the only ones who experience stress and burnout while juggling multiple roles and caregiving demands. 
• Let's all say it together: "WOMAN" DOES NOT EQUAL"MOM."  (Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.)  
• I wonder what a similar walkout of childless/free women (or women & men) would look like?  For sure, it would not be quite as impactful as one by all women, like Iceland's -- but I think a lot of people would be surprised to realize just how big a group we really are (and we're a group that's rapidly growing!). 
• Jessica Grose's subscriber newsletter for the New York Times, which focuses primarily on parenting & family issues, is examining the decline in global fertility/birth rates in developed countries.  Last week, she posed an interesting question:  "Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?" (She's not talking about declining sperm counts, either.) Sample passage: 

[Vegard] Skirbekk [a population economist] argues, in part, that it’s because of a lack of “‘suitable’ men, as women have become increasingly selective.”... 

“Even in the world’s most gender-egalitarian countries, women tend to prefer men with relatively high income and education,” according to Skirbekk. Women also tend to not want to partner with men who have drug and alcohol problems or are prone to violence. [Note from Loribeth:  Well, duh...][How dare we be so picky, right??  :p  ] 

Presenting data from 27 Western countries, Skirbekk writes that in most instances, somewhere below 10 percent, in some cases below 5 percent, of the population seems to voluntarily opt for being childless. On an individual level, that’s not a problem: free country and all. But, I do think what Skirbekk calls coincidental childlessness — when people who never explicitly decided they don’t want children don’t have them for a variety of reasons — is a problem. If someone wants a child but doesn’t end up with one because of not finding a suitable partner, because of reaching age-related infertility, or because of the increasing expense of having children, that can be life altering.

• (This is consistent with what Jody Day of Gateway Women has written:  the vast majority of women without children do not choose to be childfree, or even wind up without children because of infertility issues. Not finding a partner who is not only suitable/desirable but also wants to have children with you, while you're still able to do so, is a huge issue that's not explored often enough.)  
• The newsletter is subscriber-only, but I'm a subscriber ;) and this link above is a gift link, so have a read and let me know what you think! 
• The comments are interesting.
• In a similar vein, Lyz Lenz's Substack newsletter ("Men Yell At Me" -- love that title, lol) points out that "Men Are Lonely. But Women Are Being Attacked." (Subhead: "Male loneliness is not a woman's problem to solve.")  Also worth a read! 
• Jess at A Different Path had a great post recently, asking "What IS Self-Care?" I thought of it when I read Anne Helen Petersen's latest Culture Study post, "The Tyranny of Faux Self-Care," which includes an interview with Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, author of a forthcoming book on the subject.  (The comments are also instructive!) 

#MicroblogMondays: Family Day 2023

Today is "Family Day" in Ontario and a couple of other Canadian provinces -- a made-up holiday that yes, to its credit, does give us a holiday/long weekend in the middle of that long stretch between Christmastime and Easter -- but does so while rubbing pronatalism and "family values" in the faces of those of us who have failed to measure up to the traditional family ideal of husband, wife, 2.1 kids (preferably at least one boy & one girl) and possibly a dog. (See my previous thoughts & rants on Family Day here.)  

My inbox  today is full of promotional emails from various retailers with subject lines such as "We Are Family!" (I'm afraid you're not, Reitmans...), and "From Our Family to Yours, Additional 20% Off" (thanks but no thanks, Northern Reflections). It's not at the level of Christmas or Halloween (yet?), but it's certainly a much greater level of hype than even just a few years ago. Ugh. Thankfully, most of the news coverage I've seen to date has been focused on basic promotion of local family-related activities and events and reminders of what's open/closed. I haven't dared take more than a peep at social media (probably a wise choice...!)

My normal inclination on Family Day would be to hide out at home.  Even before pregnancy loss & infertility, and well before covid, dh & I never enjoyed being out in holiday crowds. But Older Nephew called dh personally a few days ago and asked if we'd like to come up there this morning with his parents (BIL & SIL) for breakfast at a local restaurant -- their treat, as a thank you for all that we do for them and especially Little Great-Nephew.  Dh immediately said yes.

I was tickled to be asked (and that they wanted to pay -- awwww, they're growing up!! lol) -- but -- well, you know. :p  We've only ventured out to dine in a restaurant once since the advent of covid three years ago (early last December, as related here) -- and days later, one of the people we'd been with (Older Nephew's MIL) came down with covid.  This has happened almost EVERY TIME we've pushed our comfort level to do something we know is risky. So far, we've dodged the covid bullet, but sooner or later, we know our luck is bound to run out. I'd just prefer it was later -- much later -- especially with a new variant with the ominous nickname of "Kraken" on the rise...

(And no, outdoor dining is NOT an option hereabouts right now -- this morning's weather where Older Nephew lives was just 1C/34F, and the wind was bitterly cold....!) 

Anyway, things went about as well as they could, and overall, I'm glad we went. :)  We set the alarm clock and got up at 6, eft at 8, picked up BIL & SIL and got there around 9 (!) -- early, but hey, we got to spend time with LGN (AND the dog, at the house!).  And there was NO traffic on the way up there! The restaurant was packed (and there was a big chalkboard sign in the foyer to greet us saying "Happy Family Day!" complete with stick figure drawings) -- but we were seated in the back, where the tables were pretty well spaced (at least a couple of feet apart), and the ones closest to us were empty for part of the time we were there, which made me feel better. Dh & I wore our masks until we got our food and put them back on when we were finished eating. (We were the only ones masked there.)  The food was good (and hot), and the service was pretty good too. 

Younger Nephew & his wife were also invited but said no -- not surprisingly, given that they have been ultra covid-cautious all along, AND their baby is due any day now.  

As you can imagine, I get very nervous when women go too far past their due dates :(  (nevermind when it's someone I love) -- so please keep them in your thoughts & prayers this week.  

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

"No Filter" by Paulina Porizkova

I entered my 20s in the early 1980s -- the dawning age of the supermodel -- when Paulina Porizkova, four years younger than me, was one of the most beautiful and most famous faces of the era. Her face was everywhere. 

Then, like so many models and actresses of a certain age, she faded from view. I don't think I'd heard much about her or thought about her in years -- until her husband of more than 30 years, Ric Ocasek of The Cars (one of my favourite bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s) suddenly died in 2019, when he was 75 and Paulina was in her mid-50s. 

Paulina and Ric were separated at the time of his death.  She says he had lost interest in her and hadn't touched her in years. In her loneliness, she'd begun a relationship with someone else.  But the separation was amicable -- they still lived in the same house, and were best friends for life -- or so Paulina thought. While reeling from the shock of her husband's sudden death -- she was the one who found him when she brought him coffee in bed one morning, shortly after he'd had minor surgery -- she learned he'd recently changed his will and cut her out of it completely, saying she had abandoned him. Shortly after that, the new love of her life left her too.  

With little income and no savings of her own, Paulina was forced to sue Ric's estate (which included her own two sons). She'd happily let her career take a backseat to his while she raised their children. She merged her finances with his and let his business manager handle her affairs too, while her earnings and savings played a substantial role in supporting their family and the mortgages and upkeep of two houses (one in New York City and one in the country).  

As she began to rebuild her shattered life, Paulina started pouring her grief into her Instagram account, which is where I rediscovered her. I love Paulina's IG, and recommend it highly to other women of a "certain age." So I was eager to read the book she published this fall:  "No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful." It's not a conventional memoir, but more of a collection of short essays in which Paulina reflects on her life and the lessons she's learned along the way -- about things like beauty, aging, Botox, money, grief and heartbreak, anxiety and depression, nudity and nakedness. We learn about her childhood and how it shaped the adult she became: she was raised by her grandmother in Czechoslovakia after her parents fled to Sweden when the Russians invaded in 1968. They battled to be reunited with her, only to divorce shortly after it finally happened. We learn about her early modelling days in Paris, and about the jealous, obsessive man she married.

It's not a long book. It's a little scattered -- it goes back and forth in time, it's not in chronological order --  but I appreciated Paulina's raw honesty and willingness to bare all (in more ways than one!).  "After a lifetime of being looked at, she is ready to be heard," says the book's blurb on Goodreads. I think she's an inspiration, and a pretty smart cookie, as well as a beautiful woman. 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #9 read to date in 2023 (and Book #3 finished in February), bringing me to 20% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2023 tagged as "2023 books."  

Odds & ends (& whines, lol)

• "This Valentine's Day, show some love to the one who’s always there." Katie at My Sweet Dumb Brain makes the excellent point that "The only constant in your life is you." 
• Here we go again? Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band just announced some Canadian dates this fall, including two nights here in Toronto in November. (He's also going to be in Winnipeg, for the first time ever! -- 40+ years after dh first romanced me with his music in his dorm room, lol)(on a cassette played on a boombox, lol).  I signed up for verified fan status with Ticketmaster -- which entitles me to the CHANCE to buy tickets when they go on sale (I'll find out next week if I'm going to be allowed to try...!).  
• I'm of two minds:  
• On the one hand:  Bruce isn't getting any younger (and neither are we...!). He's 73.  Who knows how many more chances we'll get to see him again?  He & his music played a key role in our early relationship :)  (as I've written on this blog several times before), and we've seen him together twice in the past in Toronto, in 1985 and 1992 (without the E Street Band) -- dh saw him a couple of times before he met me, and we tried but failed to get tickets for other times he's played in Toronto. (I also tried -- and failed -- to get tickets to see his "Springsteen on Broadway" show in New York City a few years back. A great excuse for a trip to NYC, right? Oh well...!)  He always puts on a GREAT show. 
• On the other hand: I'm mindful of the Elton John tickets saga, and how well THAT turned out...! (and how will SIL feel if we buy tickets to Bruce, after she & I decided to cash in our Elton tickets after repeated postponements and cancellations amid pandemic uncertainty?). I'm also very mindful that (contrary to what some might think), covid is still very much alive and well -- and the prospect of sitting in a crowded arena with 20,000+ other, mostly maskless, singing & cheering people, is not as appealing as it might have been three years ago, to me or to dh...!  (In fact, I recently read that several members of the E Street Band are currently out with covid themselves!) There's also been a sharp increase in crimes on the transit system, which is how we'd normally head downtown. Parking there is both hard to find and astronomically expensive, especially when there's a big event on. 
• (This is assuming we're able to get tickets in the first place... and even if we're able, are we willing to pay the exorbitant prices that will likely be charged?)(Pricing hasn't been announced yet, but as the Toronto Star pointed out, it's likely a far cry from the $10 dh paid to see him in 1978...!)  
• (Why does life have to be so complicated?) 
• A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how developers are proposing to build a 12-storey condo building right next door to ours (and directly across the street from another, larger 10-storey condo building) -- replacing three houses on/adjacent to the corner of a main road and a residential street, and facing and exiting onto the residential street.  
• Last week, I tuned in online to a recent meeting of our city council where members of the public had their say about the proposed application. There were 45 written submissions (available to read on the city's website) and about 10 local residents speaking at the meeting or via Zoom.  It was fascinating and quite an eye-opener in some respects to watch the process unfold and listen to what they all had to say. It's quite obvious to anyone who sees the site that it's a completely inappropriate place to put up a 12-storey building, but it was informative and validating to hear all the arguments presented in such an articulate way. (I won't list them all here but let's just say the proposed design violates existing zoning laws in more ways than one, not to mention urban planning principles and simple common sense.)  
• Whether that was enough to stop the project -- or at least scale it back to a more reasonable size -- remains to be seen. To their credit, the councillors were unanimous in their opposition -- but they also pointed out that the appeals process is stacked solidly in favour of the developers, enabled by a pro-development provincial government and premier. Sigh. 
• The BBC had what I thought was a surprisingly thoughtful article about the growing number of people choosing not to have children. They point out the difference between childFREE and childLESS, discuss the many reasons why people might not have children, the fact that people tend to lump childless and childfree people together -- AND they talk about how the choice to live without children is still not well understood and accepted  -- a point that I don't think gets enough attention outside the childless/free community. Worth a read!  
• The article uses the term "backlash," which I don't think I've ever heard in a discussion related to childless/free living before.  I read Susan Faludi's classic book on the subject when it first came out in the early 1990s -- and I see there's a new edition available (from 2006).  Time for a re-read, perhaps...!  
• "Freeze now, sell later":  Alison Motluk , who writes the Substack newsletter Hey ReproTech, speculates that some women who freeze their eggs but never use them might eventually try to sell them as a way to recoup their significant financial outlay.  
• Yael Wolfe in Medium:  "This Gen Xer Doesn’t Understand TikTok."  
• This late Boomer/early GenXer doesn't either, lol, and Yael perfectly voices my gripes with trying to keep up with technology (and some of the reasons why I've never sought to expand the "reach" of this blog onto social media and become an "influencer"). (Trust me, some day it will happen to you -- if not with TikTok then some other newfangled app that you don't "get" and have no interest in learning how to use...!) 
• In a similar vein, Anne Helen Petersen recently announced that she is winding down the Discord community she created as an extension of her Culture Study Substack newsletter. Like many online community leaders, she found it was taking up a lot more time and energy than she bargained for.  
• I've been on message boards since 1998, and on the CS Discord for the better part of a year, although I rarely visited there. There were a lot of similarities to old-style message boards -- and yet, I just couldn't figure out how it was organized or how to follow threads, etc.  I guess I really am getting old...??  :p  
• I debated over whether to watch "Not Dead Yet," the TV version of Alexandra Potter's delightful novel "Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k-Up," which I read, loved and reviewed here. Then I forgot all about it. Oh well. 
• I may still watch (I found I can catch up online) -- but from what I've read, I didn't miss out on much. "Struggles to Show Signs of Life," says the Hollywood Reporter. Ominously, the Reporter also says the show is "adapted by David Windsor and Casey Johnson in almost no recognizable way from Alexandra Potter’s novel." ("A loose adaptation," says Slant.)  
• The only real similarities between the book and the TV show seem to be a lead character named Nell who returns home from abroad after her relationship implodes and lands a job writing obituaries.  But in the Hollywood version, the setting has changed from England to California (not surprising, but very disappointing), and... the dead people Nell writes about... talk to her.  A cutesy twist that's definitely not in the book. Sigh. 
• Have you watched it? (If you have, have you read the book first?)  What did you think? 
• I have virtually zero interest in American college or NFL football or the Super Bowl -- but I did watch the halftime show on Sunday... and noticed that Rihanna seemed to be sporting a bit of a tummy. I knew she'd had a baby recently and figured maybe it was leftover pregnancy weight? 
• But then dh told me "Rihanna pregnant" was trending on Twitter, so I Googled and found out she'd had her son back in May 2022.. so...!. (You can see how closely I follow celebrity gossip these days, lol.)  Her management confirmed the pregnancy before the show was over. 
• The childless forums and accounts I follow were full of eyerolls and angst the next morning. CNBCers in the UK reported that Rihanna's pregnancy was the headline news, with who won the Super Bowl coming a distant second/afterthought. 
• Personally, while I did some eye-rolling myself, I found this far less triggering/enraging than Beyonce's ultra-smug reveal of her first pregnancy at the VMAs some years back (ripping off camouflaging clothing and then caressing her belly with a self-satisfied smile, to make sure we got the message)... followed by her photo shoot and then "fertility goddess" routine at the Grammys while heavily pregnant with twins a few years later (which I wrote about here). Oy. 
• (Does anyone actually sing LIVE at these events anymore? It was obvious several times that Rihanna wasn't even trying to lip sync...)  

"Still Life" by Louise Penny

I may have both my Canadian and mystery novel fan credentials revoked for admitting this, but I had never read a Louise Penny/Three Pines/Gamache novel -- until now.  I'd heard great reviews from many sources and always had it in mind that I should give the series a try, but... well, you know... so many books, so little time, etc. etc...!  

Then, in a recent Friday Roundup post,  Mel mentioned: 

The Substack (Loribeth is so right! Substacks are blogs in disguise.) Notes from Three Pines is hosting an ongoing Inspector Gamache read-along. It kicks off on February 22, so you have time to read the first book (Still Life). I will jump in because my old book club closed down, and I’m looking for a more structured community beyond Goodreads. But not too structured because I don’t want to leave my house.

Does anyone else want to join along? And then go on a road trip to the greater Montreal area?

I responded in a comment: 

I am game for Montreal (and maybe the read-along too, albeit I need another book club like a hole in the head, lol). Despite my (relative) proximity — it’s only about a six-hour drive from here, and I think some of the nonstop trains can get there in 4 — I’ve only been there once, overnight on business (followed by [note from Loribeth: actually, preceded by] six hours in Quebec City before flying home again). This was about 30 years ago, and I spent most of my time either in a hotel room or board room. My mom & I were going to take the train there for a few days when she came to visit me about 20+ years ago — the train tickets were bought and hotel room booked, I’d researched stuff for us to do — but we had to cancel. I was suffering horrible anxiety attacks, post-infertility treatment, just before she got there and I did not want to be in a strange city and not feeling well. 🙁

Despite the fact that (as I alluded to Mel) I'm ALREADY trying to keep up with 3 -- wait, 4! -- active book clubs/reading groups (D.E. Stevenson, L.M. Montgomery Readathon, and Lighthouse Women -- both the NoMo book club and the "Living the Life Unexpected" reading group -- plus two other groups are that are inactive at the moment) -- plus read some books of my own choosing once in a while!  ;) -- I couldn't resist the opportunity. ;)  Conveniently, I already had a copy of "Still Life" in my Kobo e-reader, purchased on sale a while back, so I was able to dive in as soon as I finished reading my previous book.  

*** *** *** 

In many ways, "Still Life" is a standard murder mystery, with echoes of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. I didn't find the opening chapter, where the stage is set and the body discovered, especially exciting or attention-grabbing -- but once Chief Inspector Armand Gamache arrived on the scene, my interest was piqued.  The body in question is that of Jane Neal, retired schoolteacher and amateur artist, whose painting was just accepted for exhibit at the local art show. Upon closer inspection, the cause of death is revealed:  an arrow, straight through her heart. Was it a hunting accident -- or was it murder?  Who killed her, and why?  

Two things in particular set this book apart and made it a good read for me: first, the Canadian/Quebecois setting and references. Examples:  it's Thanksgiving -- *Canadian* Thanksgiving, in October! :)  There are mentions of Tim Hortons, United Empire Loyalists, the Parti Quebecois, the referendum on Quebec independence (I'm assuming the one in 1995, which came dangerously close to destroying the country, and not the earlier one in 1980) and Prime Minister Mulroney (who stepped down in 1993 -- which, along with the referendum reference and a teenager's Discman suggests the book is set in the early 1990s). 

Second, I loved the vivid portraits of the village of Three Pines and its quirky residents -- and of the principled and thoroughly decent Gamache and his fellow police officers (even the clueless and annoying Yvette Nichol). I'm not convinced I'd want to move to Three Pines -- there are some rather dark undercurrents there (aren't there always, in small towns?) -- but I sure would love to spend some time browsing in Myrna's bookstore and have a meal and a cafe au lait in Olivier's bistro.  :)  Especially in October, with the glorious fall colours on full display.  :)  

What I didn't like: I don't want to give away any spoilers -- but let's just say that I share a phobia with one of the main characters, Clara ;)  which figures prominently in a chapter near the end of the book. That scene alone probably knocked half a point off my rating, lol. ;)  

4 stars on Goodreads. As I said, this was my first Louise Penny novel, but it won't be my last. I'm looking forward to reading more about Gamache and Three Pines, very soon.  :)  

Have you read any Louise Penny books?  Are you doing the Notes From Three Pines Readalong? And have you watched the new streaming TV series based on the books, "Three Pines"?  Thoughts? (I don't have Amazon Prime and haven't seen it, but I must admit, I think Alfred Molina was a good casting choice for Gamache. :)  )  

This was Book #8 read to date in 2023 (and Book #2 finished in February), bringing me to 18% of my 2023 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2023 tagged as "2023 books."