Blogoversary #14

Fourteen (14)(!!) years ago tonight, in 2007, I hit "post" here for the very first time, and started off down the road less travelled (for me, anyway) of blogging.  

I'm not sure what more I can say about the past 14 years that I haven't said in my previous years of blogoversary posts, lol.  Blogging has been a joy and a release and a comfort, and has brought so much to my life -- never more so than during these past 18 months of global pandemic. 

Perhaps not coincidentally, this is shaping up to be one of my most productive blogging years yet, in terms of published posts! -- with 178 posts so far (179 including this one), I've already surpassed every other year that I've been blogging in terms of total posts for the calendar year, except for the last one (and I'm on track to top that one too)... and by year-end (or perhaps early in 2022), I will reach 2,000 posts (!) published in total over 14+ years.

Whether you're new here or whether you've been here the entire time (and I know a few of you have!), THANK YOU all for being here with me! <3 

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And now, I'm off (this afternoon) with dh, BIL & SIL to Older Nephew's house, about an hour north of us, to witness Little Great-Nephew (who will be 2 in a few weeks' time) heading out in costume with his proud parents for his very first round of trick-or-treating!  We and the grandparents will stay at the house to hand out the candy (and keep the dog from going crazy, lol). After five years of Halloween being a total non-event, living in a condo, I'm looking forward to being part of the excitement again, even on the periphery! Bittersweet, yes -- but I'm thankful that BIL & SIL, as well as Older Nephew & his wife, are so willing to share and to involve us in Little Great-Nephew's life and milestone events.  :) 

*** *** *** 

Blogging stats, 14 years later:

Number of years blogging: 14

Published posts (including this one): 1,973

Average # of posts per year: 141  

Average # of posts per month: 12 

(So far in calendar year 2021, I've published 178 posts -- 179, including this one -- a minimum of 10 (in June) and as many as 24 in one month (May).)

Published comments: 11,319 

Page views (all time):  1,110,270 (HOLY CRAP!!) 

Followers (on Blogger):  151 

Past blogoversary posts here.

First blog post ever here! :) 

"All the lonely people, where do they all belong?"

(This post is written in bullet points because it started out as part of a larger "odds & ends" post and wound up being so lengthy, I decided it deserved to be highlighted on its own!) 

• Pamela messaged me recently to bring a first-person article about co-housing in the New York Times to my attention. Co-housing, of course, is a subject of great interest among those of us aging without children (particularly single childless women), among other demographic groups -- but I was both amused and annoyed to see that this article focused on its benefits for (just guess...!) MOMS with young children (because it's ALWAYS all about them, isn't it??)(eyeroll). 
• The headline -- originally reading " Is This the Cure for the Loneliness of American Motherhood?" was later revised to "parents" -- i.e., "Does Co-Housing Provide a Path to Happiness for Modern Parents?" (same song, second verse, right?)   
• There's a lively discussion in the comments section about both the pros & cons of co-housing -- food for thought for those of you interested in this option. 
• Both Pamela and Sarah (of Infertility Honesty) managed to comment before the comments section was closed. (Click on their names to link to their specific comments.) 
• As Pamela said, as part of her NYT comment, "this piece was also a lost opportunity to explore how to be more creative and embracing of all in society who experience isolation or loneliness in modern society. " 
• Said Sarah (in part -- hers was the very last comment published by the NYT before the comments were closed), "It seems everyone could potentially benefit from what co-housing has to offer, especially those who find themselves part of marginalized or unacknowledged groups.  It’s unfortunate this reality was all but omitted from this piece." (Her comment, to date, has been "recommended" 175 times and is currently the 11th most recommended "reader pick.") 
• Pamela also wrote a blog post that's worth a read (as well as the comments there). 
• Commenter hen3ry: "As a single person it's interesting living on my own in a country that offers next to nothing to singles with no children.  And there are other assumptions made when it comes to medical care or other sorts of things we do." (They go on to list some of these assumptions -- worth a read.)  
• Further down, hen3ry replies to a responder, "I've been told so many times that I should get married and have children and then I can live better.  (I'm nearly 63 and it's too late for that but I'd like to live in a place I can afford that's nice.) I think that Americans view anyone who doesn't think their way as the enemy especially if they don't conform outwardly.  As a lesbian I do not.  But I have the same needs as anyone else and all of us, whether we like each other or not, ought to understand that."
• Another commenter, Laura, wrote: "I disagree that mothers are lonelier than the elderly. Being at home with young children can be boring and isolating, but it is transitory; it only last a few short years. And you CAN get out and start a playgroup or find other ways to meet other parents. Elderly people are in a phase of life where people they love die, one after another, until they die themselves. And they often they lack the physical ability to get out of the house.  The  years between having young children and having adult children go by so fast." 
• (Of course, a mom couldn't resist getting in the last word, wisecracking, "They only seem fast when they're over. My daughter's infancy and toddlerhood lasted approximately 400 years.")
• Near the end of the comments, there was this comment from Rachel:  "What's going on out in America for people without children to cause so much animosity towards children and parents? I've read a lot of comments in the last month from people who think kids are destroying the planet and parents are trying to gobble up all the Fed tax dollars, lots of "don't have kids if you can't afford them" etc., when parents seem to just be sharing their struggles. Curious what the struggles are for those without kids that has created a feeling of scarcity of resources and us against you....." 
• I was VERY tempted to respond, but the comments closed before I could do so. I daresay a few of us (whether childless or childfree by choice) could have given her an earful/eyeful about our own struggles (which include the struggle, when we do muster up the courage to share, to be both heard and understood by the parenting majority)...!  

#MicroblogMondays: 40 years!!

40 years ago last night, I went to a party that changed my life. 

I had just started my third year of university, and was living in the same all-female dorm where I'd spent first and second year (and where I would also live in fourth year too). The dorm was connected to a much older, stately brick residence (built in 1912) by another building (1960s) which housed the administrative offices and cafeteria where we all ate. One wing of that older residence (the west wing) was all-male, and the other (east wing) was a mix of same-sex and co-ed floors. 

Most Friday &/or Saturday nights, there was some kind of "social" (dance) or party going on at one of the residences or elsewhere on campus. Often, before the big/main party started, there would be a "pre-party," where two or more floors would get together to break the ice and get to know each other better over preliminary drinks. 

October 24, 1981, was the annual "inter-rez" social at the student union building on campus, bringing together residents from all the student dormitories on campus. (I wrote down the details in my datebook, which I still have.) Before we headed over, my all-girls floor got together with an all-guys floor from the adjacent dorm for a pre-party in the east wing lounge -- a beautiful old room with wood panelling and a huge fireplace and windows overlooking the gymnasium on the level below.  

I met a lot of guys that evening, but I particularly remember chatting with a very nice (and nice-looking) one -- a pre-masters student, slightly older than most of his floormates, who told me he was from Toronto. That stuck out for me, because (a) not too many grad students lived in residence, and (b) not too many people came to our school from Toronto -- which was not exactly a popular place in western Canada in the early 1980s -- if it ever was or has been, before or since, lol. 

Reader, I married him.  :) 

Not right away, of course. ;)  (The wedding happened not quite four years later.) I'll admit, I thought he was a very nice guy, but sparks didn't fly -- at least not right away, for me anyway. (He claims they did for him!)  I was kind of enjoying playing the field again after a painful breakup the previous year with the handsome architecture student who'd stolen my heart in first year. 

But our two floors hit it off that evening -- Toronto Guy (i.e., dh) was one of an entire floor of very nice, cute, fun guys -- and they quickly became my floor's favourites to party with and eat dinner in the cafeteria with that year. My floormates & I would often drop by to visit them, by ourselves or in pairs or small groups, going from room to room to chat (everyone kept their doors open, unless they were deep into studying.) I remember dancing with him at the Halloween social, where he wore a lab coat (easy costume), and at the Christmas social (just before we all headed home for break), where he kissed me under the mistletoe. We finally got together at the Ukrainian New Year's social in mid-January. Our official first date happened about a week later (on Jan. 22, 1982), and we've been together ever since then. 

40 years. Yikes! 

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

Who ARE these kids?? 
(Spring 1982 residence formal, a few months into being a couple.
My dress cost all of $19.99.)

Odds & ends

• I was thrilled when the private Gateway Women community marked Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month (in part) by setting up a new Childless After BabyLoss group -- and incredibly honoured when I was asked to co-host!  Not only that, but my co-host is the lovely Bamberlamb, who blogs at It's Inconceivable. It's been a while since I put my support group facilitating skills to use, but I hope to do justice in the role! 
• The New Yorker published one of those articles that I think should be mandatory reading for people who go around asking childless women why they don't "just adopt": "How an adoption broker cashed in on prospective parents' dreams." 
• There was also this piece in the Atlantic: "The New Question Haunting Adoption." (Tagline: "At a glance, America’s shortage of adoptable babies may seem like a problem. But is adoption meant to provide babies for families, or families for babies?")  
• I've read and recommended two of the books mentioned in the article, earlier this year: "American Baby" by Gabrielle Glaser, and "The Child Catchers" by Kathryn Joyce. Click on the links for my reviews. 
• I also thought this Atlantic article was interesting: "The Hidden Costs of Living Alone."  (Tagline: "In ways both large and small, American society still assumes that the default adult has a partner and that the default household contains multiple people.")  Obviously, I do have a partner, but I can still relate to a lot of this -- couples without children don't quite conform to the assumed default household either...! 
• Sample passage (which I think could also apply in many ways to childless couples -- boldfaced emphasis mine): 

And many single people, whether they live alone or with others, constantly face the stigma associated with not being partnered. “It’s oppressive, always getting pitied,” [Bella] DePaulo said. “People have bought into the ideology that having someone is better—[that] the more natural, normal, superior way of being is being coupled or having a family.”

She sees this norm in the political rhetoric around virtuous, “hardworking families,” and thinks that this cultural default can to some extent be blamed for the ways in which American society has been slow to adapt to people who are single or live alone. She also attributes the slowness to “cultural lag”: In the future, lots of Americans are going to live alone—tens of millions already do—and eventually, society will, with hope, catch up.

• The latest edition of Anne Helen Petersen's "Culture Study" newsletter focuses on The Ideological Battlefield of the "Mamasphere," with a fascinating interview with Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who is studying "momfluencers" for her PhD dissertation (!!). (Sometimes when I read about mothers like these, I'm glad I never got to be one, and certainly not with today's social media... I could never keep up!)  I especially loved reading the comments about the "Performative Farm"...! 

"Why it's OK to quit"

I get a daily newsletter from the New York Times that features highlights and links to the day's opinion columns. I don't always open it, depending on time and interest, but today's header caught my attention because it encapsulates one of my favourite topics:  "Why it's OK to quit." 

The newsletter was written under Lindsay Crouse's byline, featuring a video she produced on this topic, with a brief introduction in the newsletter. I am not sure if Crouse's words are duplicated somewhere on the NYT site that I could link to -- but I'm going to reproduce them here because I think they are so worth reading. (Infertility is never mentioned, but I think there's a lot here that applies!): 

It hit me over the summer: Everyone was quitting. Certainly, there has been an exodus from jobs. In what’s been called the “Great Resignation,” the number of workers who quit their jobs in April alone broke an all-time U.S. record. But then more people quit in July, and in August, even more.

But people aren’t just quitting jobs. They’re moving cities too. Divorce rates are up. If there was ever a time to shake up your life, 2021 seems to be it.

As you’ll see in today’s Opinion video, which I made with Kirby Ferguson, I find this turn of events fascinating. It’s scary to confront the stigmas around quitting, which are instilled in us from childhood. We’re taught that quitters are losers, who shuffle through life without ever achieving the great breakthrough many of us have been raised to covet, not just by our families, but by movies, songs and general Americana.

 

For our whole lives, our culture has encouraged us to embrace toughness and perseverance at all costs — but those costs can be higher than we realize, especially to ourselves. What if sticking with something for the sake of sticking with it actually causes you more harm than good? What if the smartest thing you can do to achieve success is quit?

As brutal as it’s been, I think the pandemic has forced many of us to reflect — and to realize that our tolerance for change might be higher than we thought. The disruption has helped us see what we were too busy to notice before. Now that we’ve been jostled off the treadmill of our ordinary lives, we have a chance to figure out what we path we really want to be on. And to start down that one instead.

Here's a link to the video Crouse mentions, which is also worth watching.  :)  (The comments are worth a glance too.) 

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends from a visit "home"

• 

(Not exactly a "micro" post, but it's what I've got this Monday...!) 

• We spent last week visiting my parents in western Canada, for the first time in almost TWO YEARS (since Christmas 2019, pre-pandemic). While we were there, we also celebrated (Canadian) Thanksgiving.  Thankful doesn't even BEGIN to describe how I was feeling!   
• We had our big Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving Monday itself, and then feasted on leftovers for the rest of the week. My sister prepped the turkey and got it into the oven while our mother slept in. I got the stuffing/dressing ready. 
• As usual, my time online was limited/sporadic while we were there -- so I am waaayyyyy behind on blog reading & commenting, as well as on keeping up with all my social media sites. 
• It's not that we were terribly busy while we were there (especially with COVID-19 restrictions & precautions in place) but with six people in one small house, there's a lot of noise (not a lot of privacy) and a lot of interruptions. 
• BIL gave us some N95 masks the week before we left. We tried them on the night before our departure -- but decided not to wear them, even though all the experts advise they are the most effective. They were TIGHT -- I could feel mine digging into my face -- and while I felt like I could breathe in mine fairly well, they smelled, and they felt sweaty. I salute all the hospital workers and others who wear these things all day, every day. I couldn't do it!
• We double-masked instead, with a standard blue disposable medical mask worn under a cloth mask from Old Navy. We put them on before we entered the airport terminal where we were departing, and didn't take them off again until we left the terminal upon arrival, with the brief exception of when we had to show our faces to the airline staff for identification purposes before boarding. That was more comfortable/do-able, especially for a 2.5 hour flight. Add in time spent in the airports, pre- and post-flights, and we had the masks on for about 5 hours straight. 
• Masks are mandatory in the airport and on the plane, but you're allowed to remove them when eating and drinking. There were quite a few people around us in the departure lounge who apparently couldn't survive the prospect of a 2.5 hour flight without their Starbucks or Tim Hortons...!  
• I guess they deserve SOME slack, though, since our flight west left the airport at 8 a.m....!  We were up before 4 a.m. (gulp...!).   
• The weather was gorgeous the day we arrived, miserable for most of the week we were there (people blamed us for bringing the bad weather!), and gorgeous again the day before we left, lol -- 16C (about 60-61F), sunny and not a cloud in the sky.  We spent a lot of that afternoon outside, helping my dad do some yard & garden cleanup.
• My parents are now in their early 80s -- and definitely aging. I've noticed it on previous visits, of course, but the gap between visits has emphasized to me that they are slowing down. They both have some mobility issues (my mother uses a cane or walker outside the house and has a tremor in one arm/hand, my dad shuffles more than he walks and his balance is not good), and they REALLY need to get out of their early 1980s split-level house (three levels, with about 8 steps between levels to go up and down) with the big yard to keep up. (*I* found the stairs tough on my already-wonky knees, and I'm 20 years younger than they are!)  My mother in particular is resisting any talk about moving/downsizing, though...! 
• You will all remember my moaning and groaning about my long, shaggy hair during the time(s) salons were closed over the past 20 months (on & off) because of COVID-19...!  ;)  Let's just say I come by it honestly, lol.  
• My mother comes from a generation/culture where, as an adult woman, you get your hair done once a week. She's had a weekly appointment for a wash-and-set (or, these days, wash-and-style), wherever we were living, for as long as I can remember -- but that's gone by the wayside during this pandemic. And she's always worn her hair permed (and, until just recently, coloured). 
• She stopped colouring her hair shortly before our last visit, almost two years ago -- so the mostly grey/white hair was not such a shock to see -- but I can't remember the last time (if there ever WAS a time) I saw my mother without a perm -- and she is MISERABLE about not having one. I had to admit, she did not look entirely like herself (to me, at least). Without it, and especially without her weekly wash-and-style appointment, her hair is now stick-straight and flat. 
• On top of COVID restrictions/closures, her regular stylist recently retired because of health issues, and her next-favourite stylist (a former neighbour) is on maternity leave.  Another stylist she knows mostly cuts men's hair and has agreed to cut my mom's -- but she won't do perms because the chemicals bother her skin too much (one reason why she generally only does men these days).  
• So Mom's hair is, at least, neatly trimmed now that the salons are open again, even if it is also grey/white and flat (if only temporarily...!). 
• My sister had the week off work and was able to spend it all with us. She & her partner picked us up at the airport and dropped us off again when we were returning home. 
• My sister's partner/boyfriend/common-law husband is a computer techie who sets up and fixes computers for a living. I brought along both my current (HP) laptop and the one it replaced (an ASUS), which died on me last February. Miraculously, he was able to retrieve ALL my data (aside from just five photos).  Not bad, eh??!  He never charges us because we're family. Nevertheless, I left him my old computer to use for parts, etc. -- and Mrs. Santa Claus will be adding a little something extra to his stocking this Christmas...!  
• He also brought me a portable hard drive (I did pay him for that), and set me up with a program (called SyncToy) that will help me do regular backups more easily. (Lesson learned!!)
• I have some cleanup to do -- some of the files on my computer are now duplicates or partial duplicates, and some folders need to be combined -- but it's so much more preferable to NOT having the files at all...! 
• A couple of the neighbours dropped by briefly to say hello -- one stayed at the door and another wore a mask -- and we ventured out to the grocery store a few times -- but we mostly stayed close to home.
• Mom & Dad live 20 miles away from one of the province's/country's anti-vax/anti-mask hotspots (perhaps not coincidentally, also one of the province's current COVID-19 hotspots too). Normally, we would go there to shop (it's a much bigger town with a small mall, a WalMart and a large supermarket, among other retail outlets) and maybe have some lunch somewhere. Not this time! 
• We played cards almost every night we were there. Normally, Parents' Neighbours' Daughter (PND) would have joined us, at least a couple of times. She loves to play cards and has played with us from the time she could hold the cards in her hand and count her points. 
• Unfortunately, a few days before we arrived, one of Older Little Princess's classmates tested positive for COVID-19 (age 10/Grade 5 = too young to be vaccinated). As a close contact, Older Little Princess had to isolate for several days, including part of our time there.  
• Her isolation time also overlapped with Younger Little Princess's 7th birthday, and so plans for a birthday party gathering with friends had to be postponed. :(  Needless to say, Younger Little Princess was hugely disappointed.
• We did all drive over there one night with cards & presents, and that seemed to cheer her up. It was a brief drive-by visit -- we stayed in the car & rolled down the windows to chat. 
• Not only was Older Little Princess a little too close to COVID-19 for comfort, but PND/her mom herself teaches school in the anti-vax/COVID-19 hotspot just down the road that I mentioned above.  
• PND said she would love to play cards with us, but she would leave it up to us. (I think maybe she still felt a bit sheepish about what happened the last time we saw them...!). My mother was inclined to call her to come over, but both my sister & I felt (reluctantly) that it was better to be safe. I think PND understood. (I think. I hope.)  I hope things will be different/better/safer the next time we're there...! 
• While we were there, the U.S. government announced they will reopen the land border as of Nov. 8th. My American mother was ecstatic at the thought of making a day trip to her hometown, 20 miles south of the border, for the first time in almost two years, to check out things and visit a few people -- and one of her friends called the next morning, full of plans to head to their favourite casino in northern Minnesota as soon as they could book rooms at the hotel there (!). 
• Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. Besides meeting vaccination requirements, all visitors to Canada crossing the border from the U.S. -- including returning Canadian citizens -- must present a negative molecular (PCR) test taken within 72 hours of departure. Rapid/antigen tests are not acceptable.  
• For short trips that are less than 72 hours, Canadian citizens are allowed to do their pre-entry molecular test before they leave Canada. 
• PCR tests for travel purposes are NOT covered by provincial health insurance (at least, not here in Ontario), and cost approximately $150-200, whether you take the test here in Canada or in the U.S.  That's a lot of money for people on a limited income, like my parents -- especially for a short cross-border visit. 
• From what I could tell via Google, most private insurance companies will not cover the cost of the test through their supplemental health insurance plans either.  
• News stories on this subject here and here, fyi. 
• We got back home last night -- and spent most of today recuperating, lol. Slept in, unpacked and took our suitcases back down to our storage locker, went to the supermarket to stock up on groceries again. 
• We're both wanting to see Little Great-Nephew, but will probably stay away this week, just to be on the safe side. 
• We are planning a return visit at Christmastime. (Crossing fingers & toes and knocking wood...!)  My dad wants us to stay through New Year's. We'll see...! 
• We had to turn on the heat this morning. It wasn't THAT cold in our unit (70F -- we normally keep the temperature around 72F at this time of year), but it was starting to get a little chilly...! 
• Tomorrow is supposed to be 20C/68F -- one last blast of summery weather to enjoy, before temperatures start to plunge again! 

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

"The Radium Girls" by Kate Moore

I've been meaning to read "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women" by Kate Moore for quite some time now. Thankfully, so did my friend who organizes our "Clever Name" book club:  she made it our October selection, which gave me the nudge to finally pick it up and read it on my trip west to visit my parents last week. I started the book on the flight there, and finished it on the flight back home.  ;)  We'll be discussing it (as well as September's book, "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig -- which I read late last year and reviewed here) at a Zoom meeting in early November. 

When Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898, it was regarded as a miracle substance. During the First World War, radium was mixed into paint to create luminous dials for airplane instruments, clocks and watches. Hundreds of women -- mostly teenaged girls -- were hired for highly coveted, well-paid jobs as dial painters for companies in Orange, New Jersey; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Ottawa, Illinois (NOT Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada! lol -- we drove by there on a road trip to Iowa via Michigan and northern Illinois a few years ago and were quite amused to see the signs pointing the way to "Ottawa."). The women were taught to put their paintbrushes in their mouths to hone them to a fine point, dip them in the radium-laced paint, paint -- and then repeat the process, over and over and over again. At night, their clothing, skin and hair would glow from the accumulated radium dust. The girls would even paint glow-in-the-dark designs on their skin and teeth to entertain each other. 

And then, one by one, they started getting sick. And one by one, they began dying -- prolonged, horrible, painful deaths. 

This is a horror story of sorts, made all the more horrific because it really happened. What makes it even more horrific is the companies' response -- or rather, the lack thereof -- to their workers' plight. They lied to the girls about the hazards of working with radium -- even after the hazards became well known and documented -- they refused to disclose the results of medical tests they required the workers to undergo, and they did everything they could to cover up what was going on -- to avoid acknowledging responsibility or compensating their former employees for their pain and suffering, or even to improve conditions for current employees. It took many long years for "the Radium Girls" to receive a modicum of justice (and some did not live to see or benefit from it), but their courage and tenacity led to changes in workplace safety regulations, a greater awareness of the hazards related to nuclear weapons and energy, and ultimately saved countless thousands of lives. 

From an ALI perspective, as you might expect, many of the women experienced infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths and premature births.  "...how many women were crippled or suffered the unique pain of childlessness as a result of their poisoning is also unknown," Moore writes in the book's epilogue. Poignantly, she also writes there how one Radium Girl's nephew "picked his way through the items Pearl kept in her loft:  a baby stroller, a crib -- strange things for an old lady to have in her attic, but perhaps Pearl found herself unable to let go of these final traces of the many children she had wanted, but could never have."  

This is a long and detailed book, written in a very readable style, focusing on the personal stories of some of the key women involved. Some readers will find it all fascinating and gobble up all the details -- but I can understand that it might be a lot for others to absorb. My main issue/complaint:  there's a very large cast of characters spread over several locations, and it was sometimes difficult to keep them all straight. It probably would have helped to have them listed at the front of the book for easy reference. 

Whether or not you read "The Radium Girls," it's a story that deserves to be much better known than it is, and Kate Moore deserves credit for bringing it to our attention. 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #51 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in October), bringing me to 142% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. (This exceeds my best-ever showing in the Goodreads Challenge since I joined in 2016 -- which was 50 books read in all of 2019.)  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 23 (!) books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books."