Odds & ends

• There were lots of requests for book recommendations and book lists at the recent Childless Collective Summit, which got me thinking about all the ones I've read (and all the ones I haven't... YET!  lol).  I've added a Book List page to the pages listed at the top of this blog (directly below the nameplate/header), listing books I've reviewed or blogged about here (or remember from my pre-blog reading) related to adoption/loss/infertility (ALI), grief, childlessness and/or related subjects. Obviously, there are many other great titles I haven't read yet!  I'll update this page as I read more books or remember others that I've already read. :)  At the very bottom of the list are links to a couple of other bloggers' book lists that I've found.  Happy reading!  
• Older Nephew & his wife have bought a house!!  In a smallish town about an hour north of us here. It will mean daily commutes to work for both of them (by car -- no public transit that far north!)... but there's really nothing hereabouts they can afford (albeit they paid a rather ridiculous price for this house anyway...!). The house is about 30 years old and while some of the decor is slightly dated, it's in fairly good shape so there's not much they really HAVE to do right away (although Nephew's Wife hates the colour scheme and wants to paint, lol). 
• Nephew's Wife/Little Great-Nephew's Mom will be returning to work from maternity leave in mid-May. SIL is quitting her job to look after Little Great-Nephew, at their house here. So we will still be able to drop by once in a while to see him during the day, even if they move. ;)  
• I'm behind on bookmarking interesting articles I've read recently to share here, and I know I've missed some, but here are a few I did capture recently: 
• Conceive Hospital had a great post recently called "Are You Really Tired or Busy if You Don’t Have Children?" (The Yael Wolfe piece in Medium referenced in the post is also really great!)  It reminded me of a post from very early in my blogging career, which I later submitted to Mel's Creme de la Creme for that year:  "In a tizzy about being busy." 
• Ms. Magazine recently reran a classic feminist piece from 50 years ago.  It still sounds so depressingly familiar and, with perhaps a few tweaks in some of the details (does anyone send out laundry or dispute the need to buy a washing machine these days?), I think it still could have been written today... 

"The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman

"The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman came highly recommended by Lisa of the Gateway Women/NoMo book club as a fun read with few triggers (albeit it was not an "official" GW book club pick). (Mel also told me it was a great read.) I'd never heard of Osman, but apparently he's a well-known TV personality in Britain.

The Thursday Murder Club is a group of four septuagenarians -- two men, two women, all residents of an upscale retirement village outside of London with time on their hands -- who meet weekly to try solving cold cases.  

Then a murder happens close to home. 

I won't give away any more than that, except to say that I love, love, loved this book. It was just what I needed right now -- and while I suspect that's been a big part of its appeal ( = an escape from the pandemic), it also has wonderful (frequently hilarious) writing, memorable, well-drawn characters and a plot full of razor-sharp observations and unexpected twists (and turns, and twists again) going for it. Pure entertainment, and just lots and lots of fun. 

Five (5) stars on Goodreads 

There's already a sequel in the works, called The Man Who Died Twice, to be published in September (and I can't wait!) -- and Steven Spielberg's production company has bought the movie rights!  I'm picturing Helen Mirren as Elizabeth, Penelope Wilton as Joyce, Ben Kingsley as Ibrahim. Maybe Michael Caine as Ron? (I'm still thinking about that one.)  Here's one site's suggestions -- all very good choices and they agree with me on one role!  ;)  If you've read the book, who would you cast? 

This was Book #16 read to date in 2021 (and Book #4 finished in March), bringing me to 44% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 8 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things & small pleasures

Annoying things: 

• Gallstones acting up again.
• Lousy sleep for the past few nights (see above).  :p  :(  
• Our new neighbour across the hall (whom we have yet to meet) playing hip-hop music... just loud enough to be annoying...!!  Grrrrr....  (She did it a couple of days in a row but it's been quiet again lately... knocking wood...!)  
• Went into the local outlet for our telecomm services provider recently to check into an issue dh was having with his cellphone and to see whether he needed a new one. (He didn't -- it was an Android system issue -- which, curiously, was not affecting my phone -- exact same model, acquired at the same time as dh's. Go figure...) There were four people in the store behind the counter... one on the phone, one disappeared into the back room and two behind the closest desk talking to each other. We were the only customers there.  We stood there for almost five minutes without anyone acknowledging our presence -- not even a glance or a "Hi, we'll be with you in just a minute."  NOT IMPRESSED. 
• (There are just two main service providers in Canada -- and they're both awful, in terms of both cost and service. Canadians' cellphone bills are among the highest in the world.) 

Small pleasures: 

• BIL calling us on his cellphone to come downstairs -- then driving up to our building's front door with Little Great Nephew in his seat in the back -- sound asleep! BIL was going to wake him up but we told him no, and just feasted our eyes on him. :)  
• Visiting Little Great-Nephew at BIL's later that evening (now awake, lol). I pulled down my mask for a moment to show him my face and said, "Hi (LGN), it's Aunt Loribeth... you know me!"  And LGN gave me a brief little royal nod of his head, as if to say, "Yes, I know you... you may stay."  BIL saw it too and started laughing. Made my day.  :)  
• Reading "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman (recommended to me by Mel, among others). Review to come when I'm finished (which should be soon). Just a whole lot of fun. :) 
• Spring weather last week that was mild enough to leave the balcony door open for most of the day, several days in a row. Ahhhhh!! 
• (Annoying thing: the neighbour sitting on HER balcony and yakking nonstop on her cellphone all afternoon...!) 

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

Putting my money where my heart is

At one of the morning kickoff sessions at the recent Childless Collective Summit, organizer Katy thanked those who had paid for an extended access package, giving them access to all the presentations for up to a full year (as well as other exclusive perqs) after an initial 24-hour free period. (Packages are still available, by the way!)  She confessed that she felt uncomfortable making sales pitches (me too!) -- but explained that she had used her own money, not to mention hours & hours of her spare time (while holding down a full-time job) to organize the summit, mostly unassisted. Ten per cent of the profits from the extended access packages were donated to the Black Women's Health Imperative. Katy also said she planned to use any leftover funds to provide some compensation to the 28 speakers who offered their time and services for the summit, and additional goodies perqs for the extended access passholders.

I thought Katy did a great job in providing some free access for all, balanced with extended access for a fee (and told her so in the comments).  I bought one of the extended access passes, in part because I doubted I would be able to watch all of the things I wanted to see within the 24-hour free timeframe (and I was right!) -- but also because I'd like to see more such summits in the future, and because I've become much more conscious lately of where I want to direct my money and support.  

Throughout my adult/working life, I've made donations to various organizations and causes. I've made memorial donations when loved ones have passed away to organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society and Alzheimer's Society, as requested. I handed out money to almost every neighbourhood kid who knocked on the door of my house, selling chocolate bars for their school or asking me to sponsor them for Jump Rope for Heart at their school, or the Terry Fox Run, or to buy their Girl Guide cookies. I had monthly deductions taken from my paycheque for many years to support our local United Way, which funds a number of great local initiatives. I made regular donations to both of my alma maters (asking that the funds be used specifically to support student life at the residence where I lived during my four years of undergrad, and the journalism program I attended in graduate school).  When we went to church regularly (cough), we signed up for giving via regular envelopes (and received a tax receipt in return at the end of the year). I gave money regularly to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD Canada) for several years, because too many people in my life have had their lives negatively affected -- or ended altogether -- by drunk drivers. And dh & I were longtime regular donors to the pregnancy loss support group that we attended as clients and then volunteered with as facilitators for 10 years.  

When both of us lost our jobs (in 2013 & 2014), we immediately looked for ways to pare down our expenses until we figured out what our new financial situation would look like -- and as a result, we stopped making most of our usual donations. We're now both retired/pensioners (!), and while we are living quite comfortably in retirement, our resources are not unlimited.  We've been able to resume making some donations, and I'm still giving money to larger/more established charities from time to time. But (as we used to say in the corporate world), I'm trying to be "more strategic" these days -- to give some thought about where I want to direct my funds and why, and to make more, smaller, meaningful donations to the causes that I (and the people I love) care about the most.  

For example, one of my best friends from high school lost her daughter in a tragic car accident a little over a year ago (mentioned here).  She loved animals, and her family has set up a scholarship fund that helps send local kids to spring break/summer camp run by the local humane society.  I've donated to the fund on my own, as well as together with my high school classmates. 

Another friend -- a former blogger and childless mom like me -- established a charity in memory of her neighbour and good friend who died of cancer. Every month, she and a group of friends get together (via Zoom these days, in person during pre-COVID times) to knit & crochet for good causes. Over the past nine years, they've donated more than 1,500 "chemo caps" for cancer patients and 1,100 infant loss items, such as tiny hats and receiving blankets, for local hospitals. I don't knit or crochet, but it's a great cause I wanted to support, and I love to help out by making occasional cash donations to help purchase yarn and embellishments. 

I've been looking for ways to support the childless community as well. Besides paying for an extended access pass to the recent summit, I'm a paid member of the private online Gateway Women community, which supports the wonderful work that Jody Day, Karin Enfield-deVries and Gateway Women have been doing for the past decade to support childless women around the world and to change the cultural conversation about childlessness. (The first month of community membership is free, and there are several different membership levels available.)  Gateway Women has also launched a 10th anniversary appeal and you can now make direct donations through its website!  

I'm a big fan of The Full Stop podcast for childless-not-by-choicers, and they have a feature on their website where you can buy them a "Ko-fi," which I have done in the past (and intend to do again).  I'd love to buy a coffee for any & all of the three wonderful hosts, but I'm sure they will appreciate a virtual Ko-fi even more! 

It's not exactly a donation (more of an investment), but because (as a former journalist and communicator) I strongly believe in the value of quality journalism (and because I'm a news junkie who often hits the paywall on the first day of the month, lol), I have digital subscriptions to 5 (!) daily newspapers -- The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, The Wall Street Journal (I get access to the  WSJ with my Star subscription) and The Globe & Mail (plus several paper magazines). I currently have free subscriptions to several Substack newsletters by some excellent women/feminist writers -- all of which offer at least some free content -- and am considering upgrading to paid subscriptions for at least a few of those. 

I like free stuff as much as the next person ;) -- and the Internet has been great (almost too great, I think) in giving us free access to so, so much information and entertainment and ways to connect with others. If we had to start paying for all the stuff we've become accustomed to getting for free, we'd have some very hard decisions to make.  (There are only so many digital news and Substack subscriptions and online streaming services that I can afford -- or make good use of...!)  

But "free" is never completely free -- someone somewhere is paying for it, if not with money then certainly in terms of time and effort. And I think that if we enjoy and appreciate what they do, we need to support them however we can -- with "likes" and "shares" and comments, with volunteer hours, and sometimes with our dollars, too. 

What are some of your favourite causes to support? 

A favour

Yesterday afternoon, a message popped up from an old friend from our pregnancy loss group (D). She & her family used to live in the same area where we had our house & ran the group, but a couple of years ago they moved out to the west coast (several thousand miles away).  

D said "I have a favour to ask you, and I completely understand if you would rather not."  She explained that her 90-year-old aunt lives in a small community just north of where we now live.  D had arranged for her covid vaccine appointment.  You MUST make your appointment online (at the moment, anyway) -- no phone calls, no walk-ins or in-person appointment requests taken at vaccination centres. 

(The uptake for the 80+ group has been much lower than expected -- well, DUH....!!  Many seniors are not computer or cellphone-literate, and not everyone has computer-savvy family or friends nearby to help out, right?  I guess there are some community service groups that are making appointments for people who need assistance, but seriously? I mentioned this to D and she said, "My aunt was SO confused... broke my heart." :(  ) 

Anyway, D asked if... we would consider printing off the confirmation form and other paperwork her aunt needs to bring to her appointment next week and drive it up to where she lives (about 20-30 minutes away, tops) and drop it off at her apartment. 

I did ask dh before saying yes, just to be sure he was okay with it (since he'd be doing the driving!)  and he said, "How can we NOT do it??"  So I responded that of course we could do that, and it would be great to have an excuse to get out of the house for a while, lol.  She was SO happy & grateful.  

And then about half an hour later the phone rang -- it was a delivery person downstairs. Dh looked at me quizzically (like, "What did you order NOW?"  lol)  but I knew immediately that D must have sent us something as a thank you (because that's the kind of person she is) -- and sure enough, it was a florist with a beautiful bouquet, and a card from D attached.  (D also brought dh & me flowers to our last meeting as support group facilitators, 11+ years ago, which I wrote about here!)  

A lovely bouquet from our friend.

After lunch this afternoon, I put the paperwork in my purse and we drove to D's aunt's house. It took us less than half an hour, on a cloudy but mild spring day. It was so nice to get out of the house and out in the countryside for a bit. I called and left a message before we left and she was waiting on her porch when we arrived.  We left a few minutes later, feeling like we'd done something good. :) 

I don't know if D's aunt is childless -- but she is clearly alone and in need of some assistance, at least when it comes to technological matters -- and this was such a small, simple thing we could do. (She does have someone to take her to the appointment -- I'm guessing it's someone who is also older and similarly not tech-savvy...!)  

All I could think was that someday I might be 90 and alone and in need of some help -- hopefully our nephews would be able to do something like that for me, but who knows??  

#MicroblogMondays: Childless Woodstock* :)

Back in August 1969, half a million kids -- the oldest children of the post-WWII baby boom -- some of whom were regarded by their families and communities and the media of the day as long-haired freaks -- descended on a dairy farm in upstate New York for what was billed as "three days of peace, love and music."  They took a look around in awe, at all these other long-haired freaky kids just like themselves, and realized they were not only not alone, they were a force to be reckoned with. They had power.  They called themselves "Woodstock Nation."  

Maybe I'm stretching things here just a bit ;)  but I feel like I just spent the weekend at the childless equivalent of Woodstock* (minus the drugs & the mud, lol), being inspired and empowered and (yes) entertained by the rock stars of our community -- a community that some people didn't even know existed until they showed up and looked at all the other people around them -- all of us outsiders in both the parenting and infertility communities that envelop us (and sometimes threaten to smother us) -- and realized that we, too, are a force to be reckoned with -- on average, representing one in five people (20%!) in any given developed country.  

For most of the past four days, I've been sitting in front of my laptop, bleary-eyed and slightly delirious, basking in the company of my peeps -- 2,700!!! childless-not-by-choice women (and a few men)!!! -- at the online Childless Collective Summit, organized by Katy of Chasing Creation.  (I also crammed in a Gateway Women Zoom cafe within the GW private community, a quarterly online gathering of childless elders organized by Gateway Women's Jody Day, plus a private Zoom call with some ALI blogging friends thrown in for good measure, lol.)  

I closed my laptop on Sunday night feeling both exhausted and exhilarated (and if *I'm* exhausted, I can't imagine how Katy is feeling this morning...!!), and thinking that perhaps (finally! finally!!), we too are on the verge of becoming a force to be reckoned with. 

You guys, I have been consciously living without children for almost 20 years now, and blogging for more than 13 of those years. 2,700 may not be quite half a million strong (yet!!) -- but!!! 20 years ago -- even 13 (or 10, or 5) years ago -- the idea that there would be 2,700 of us gathered together (online, but hey, pandemic...), talking openly to each other about our childless-not-by-choice experiences, sharing hopes and fears and tears, exchanging social media handles and other contact details, and organizing Facebook groups and regular Zoom meetups -- and that there would be so many amazing speakers, representing so many different aspects of our shared experiences, providing wisdom and guidance -- it would have been -- it was -- it is! -- absolutely, completely MINDBLOWING. 

I'm normally a bit shy, even among other childless women -- and I find it hard to venture outside of my comfort zones -- but I found myself commenting on some of the summit Facebook posts and in the chats and sharing some of the knowledge and resources I've accumulated over the past 20 years. I posted the link to this blog in a couple of places, inviting people to come check it out -- using my own/real name, even! -- which would NOT have happened 13 years ago, lol.  I ventured into an online/Zoom social hour, partly because I'd never been in a Zoom session that used breakout rooms, and I was curious how it would work. It was a lot of fun -- in the first breakout group, I wound up with Melissa Jones of Live Childfree, with whom I've chatted online previously;  in the second, three of the five of us turned out to live in or near Toronto. What are the odds? 

Yes, I've been hanging around childless online forums for 20 years now, and a lot of the ideas presented were familiar to me (disenfranchised grief, pronatalism...), but I still found myself getting teary-eyed at certain points in some of the presentations.  Many of the presenters were familiar to me too (and I think I could even call a few of them friends  ;) ) -- Jody Day, Lisa Ann Kissane, Lesley Pyne, Justine Froelker, Yvonne John, Kate Kaufmann, Tracey Cleantis Dwyer, Erik & Melissa Jones, Stephanie Phillips -- but some were not, and it was great to be introduced to these vibrant new voices.  

Katy said her goals for the summit included sharing resources, creating community and helping us feel supported. She achieved that in spades!  It was great for me, as a "veteran" (dare I say? -- gulp -- "elder"??) -- but I can only imagine how great it must have been for the many younger women attending who are only just starting to grapple with the reality of a childless life, who had never heard of some of the wonderful speakers and communities and ideas/concepts and books and other resources that were shared during the summit.  

If you missed out on the fun, extended access passes are still available for at least a few more weeks that will grant you access to all the summit presentations (plus other goodies). Personally, I am really glad I purchased one, because although I managed to sit in on most of the presentations/chats as they unfolded live, there were some I missed, and some I will definitely want to revisit. 

I have a few other thoughts that I jotted down during the summit that may or may not become future posts.... if/when I can gather my thoughts, I'll share those with you too!  

Did you attend the summit?  What did you think? 

(Of course, adoption, loss and infertility (ALI) bloggers (including those of us now living without children) already know the power of community, thanks to people like Melissa at Stirrup Queens, who has been creating a community among us for almost 15 years now through her blog and regular features such as the Friday Blog Roundup and... #MicroblogMondays. :)  ) 

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

*  I cannot take credit for the Woodstock allusion... someone (I'm not sure who) mentioned Woodstock in one of the summit session chats, and it stuck with me as I started to write this post. Thank you for the inspiration, whoever you are!  

"The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett

Two years ago, I was looking forward to attending my first meeting of the book club run by the local library, where we'd be discussing "The Alice Network" by Kate Quinn, which I'd recently read on my own. My happy anticipation over (finally!) getting to be a part of a real live book club was somewhat tempered when I learned the name of the next book I'd be receiving at that meeting -- a novel called "The Mothers" by a young, first-time author named Brit Bennett. 

"What are the odds, right?" I complained in a post on this blog (which I titled "The mother of all book dilemmas ;)" ). "Just one more reminder of what I am not. :p "  (I also said:  "Yes -- I am ashamed to admit -- I am literally judging a book by its cover/title.") 

As luck (?) would have it, there was a huge snowstorm the night of the book club meeting... the meeting was cancelled. I never went to the library later in the month to pick up my copy of "The Mothers" and didn't attend the next meeting either, where it was discussed. I finally got there, three months after I had first planned, and happily read books and attended meetings for a full year... until they were cancelled by COVID-19. 

*** *** *** 

I found myself thinking about "The Mothers" when I heard that Brit Bennett had a new novel coming out last summer called "The Vanishing Half." It quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed books of 2020. I will admit my interest was piqued when I heard that it was about the complex relationship between twin sisters.  I've always been fascinated by twins and other multiples -- and I wrote about this in a couple of early posts on this blog, here and here.  As I said then: 

...my sister & I were close enough in age (21 months apart) & looked sufficiently alike (especially when were little, although we never really saw it -- and our personalities were certainly not the same) and, when we were younger, dressed alike, that many people would mistake us for each other & ask whether we were twins.

I already had a copy of "The Vanishing Half" in my TBR pile when it was chosen as the first pick of the new online book club I recently joined, to be discussed at a Zoom meeting early in April. (The organizer dubbed it the "Clever Name Book Club," assuming that we'd choose another permanent, clever name... so far, it's still the "Clever Name Book Club," and I'll use that title here until we come up with something different/better, lol.)  

"The Vanishing Half" is the story of twins Desiree and Stella Vignes, who grow up in the tiny community of Mallard, Louisiana, where everyone is black, but light skinned, and dark-skinned people are shunned. Their father is lynched in front of them when they are children. At 16, they run away together to New Orleans... and then their paths begin to diverge, driven by their different personalities. Stella gets a secretarial position after "passing for white" at the job interview. A while later, she disappears in the middle of the night. Desiree moves to Washington, D.C., marries "the darkest man she could find," and later returns to her mother's house in Mallard with her daughter, Jude. Years later, Jude is working as a server at a Hollywood party when a chance encounter changes her life -- and many others. 

I found the book interesting but a little slow to get into at the start, as the characters and situations were established. Then, somewhere around the middle, things got REALLY interesting, and I zoomed through the latter two-thirds in a single afternoon/evening.  There is lots and lots to think about here:  questions of identity, the different roles we play (acting/performance), creation and reinvention, visibility and invisibility, the push and pull of family relationships, secrets and lies and the toll they take -- and, of course, the lasting impact of race, which influences everything in the story. 

4 stars on Goodreads. I'm looking forward to our book club discussion. (And thinking that maybe, just maybe, I will give "The Mothers" a try...)  

This was Book #15 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in March), bringing me to 42% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 8 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books."