#MicroblogMondays: Serenity now :)

It's been a rough couple of months around here:  

• a tumble down the stairs at the zoo in mid-May that sent me to hospital in an ambulance (!) and left me shaken up (but thankfully not too badly injured), 
• eye surgery in late July, which took longer to recover from than I had anticipated,  
• gallbladder removal surgery in mid-August (and recovery from that!), 
• isolation to try to avoid catching covid (which would have postponed the surgeries), 
• nevertheless catching a nasty cold that lasted for two full weeks (just as I was starting to feel fully recovered from all my surgeries...!), 
• no summer visit home to see my parents & sister :(  (because of all the above), 
• dh's own health issues (a bad flareup of both seasonal allergies and skin eczema), which meant we couldn't even have the balcony door open on nice days this summer  :(    
• hot, humid weather for much of the summer (which meant we couldn't have the balcony door open much anyway...!), and 
• the (not unexpected) deaths of two of dh's elderly aunts, one week apart, and thus two sets of visitations & funerals to attend over the past two weeks (mentioned here and here). 

But things are (finally!) looking up!  :) 

We (dh, BIL & SIL and I) spent this past weekend with dh & BIL's cousin, his wife & their teenaged son at their beautiful cottage (actually more like a large lakefront home -- 7 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, all the modern conveniences, and a spectacular view!),  where we also spent a weekend in mid-September last year.  We took walks, sat on the dock, ate some amazing food (and ate, and ate... lol), drank wine, chilled out in the hot tub, played board games, took a scenic drive, enjoyed the fall colours (just starting to emerge), and poked around some local shops, and enjoyed each others' company. 

It was just the tonic we needed.  :) 

Highway 28 in the Kawarthas region of Ontario. 
The fall colours were just starting to emerge in a major way. 

The dock below the cottage. A wonderful place to just sit and chill.  :) 
(Figuratively & literally, lol -- temperatures took a nosedive
and plunged to 3C overnight Saturday/Sunday while we were there!) 
The stone patio area is about midway between the cottage & the lake
and includes a fire pit. 
(About 45 stone steps total to climb up & down between the cottage & the dock!) 

And by this time next week (knocking wood, loudly!), I will be back in my home province, celebrating (Canadian) Thanksgiving with my parents & sister, after not seeing them since last Christmas. :)  (I may or may not be doing a #MM post then, depending on how busy I am there...!) 

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

Odds & ends and midweek meltdowns

• Another week, another funeral. :(  Between my recent cold, two funerals in two weeks (one week apart), getting ready to head off to dh's cousin's cottage, and then to go home, plus all the usual household stuff (cleaning, laundry, etc.)... I am exhausted.
• Dh & I had a spat en route to the funeral this morning, which resulted in a mini-meltdown from me.  :(  Lately he's just been wearing a cloth mask -- which is better than nothing, of course, but nowhere near as effective as an N-95, or even a medical/surgical mask -- even though we are well stocked with several different models of N-95s & equivalents. He claims he can't breathe in them. (eyeroll) There were a lot more people at this visitation/funeral than the one last week -- the air purifier in the visitation room at the funeral home did not seem to be running, nor the air conditioning, and unlike last week, we were the ONLY ONES wearing masks this time around. I don't care that I'm the odd one out, but I DO care that the odds of me getting sick, even when I've had four shots to date and am wearing a good mask and using hand sanitizer liberally and doing my best to do all the right things, are increased because so many other people aren't willing to do the same. 
• I feel like I am SO CLOSE -- tantalizingly close!! -- to getting home to see my parents, 10 months -- almost ANOTHER WHOLE YEAR after our last visit (last Christmas) (and after a crappy summer full of heat and humidity and surgeries and staying home to avoid covid) -- and I'm so afraid that one of us is going to get sick, or something is else going to happen to prevent me from getting there. :(   
• Reinforcing that fear: every time I open my Facebook feed or my blog reader lately, another person is sick with covid -- and quite often someone who has managed to dodge it so far until now -- three today alone. :(   (I wish I was exaggerating.) 
• Adding to my stress this week:  the federal government announced that it's rescinding all travel and border-related covid measures, including mask mandates on planes and trains. Effective October 1st (Friday). Just BEFORE we are about to fly, of course...! 
• Then I told my mother (over the phone) that we are planning to fly with just carry-ons this time around, in an attempt not to lose our luggage in the chaos that has been Toronto Pearson Airport recently... we even made a special trip to the mall to buy new ones (our first visit there in more than a year, and only our second since the advent of covid). And she tells me she's cleaning closets, and I need to bring an extra suitcase with me so that I can bring back more of my stuff. (Like I have room for it here in my 874-square-foot condo anyway??)  I'm glad she (finally??) seems to be getting serious about cleaning out the house more -- but even if I brought an extra suitcase (which I'm not, not this time around), there is only so much I can bring back anyway. 
• (Serenity now...!!) 
• The bad news just keeps on coming lately.  One of my best friends from childhood lost her husband this week. Cancer. He was just 64. :(   I knew he'd been sick, but I didn't realize he was THAT sick.  :(  
• From The Globe & Mail:  "We need to talk about the big lies behind freezing your eggs," a refreshingly honest essay by Alison Motluk. Sample passage: 

I’m here to tell you that it’s okay not to freeze your eggs. 

Decades from now, we will look back on this as one of the biggest boondoggles of our generation. We will talk about how we duped our young women, took their money in return for false hope, channelled them toward ruinous choices and left many not just in debt, but childless. All the while, we failed to resolve the real issues behind why many women who want children don’t feel they’re able to have them.

• As usual, beware the comments...! 
• Motluk has a Substack newsletter (as I've said, Substack is the new blog...!), HeyReprotech. This article appears to be taken from there (albeit it's behind a subscriber paywall). The archives go back to July 2018!   
• Thanks to Pamela for flagging this article from The Hill for me on the same topic: "Success of egg freezing depends on these two factors, new study finds:  Patients who froze their eggs before they turned 38 or froze more eggs had about a 50 percent birth rate." 
• From The Atlantic:  "Why Quitting Is Underrated" by Annie Duke, a former poker player (!), based on her forthcoming book, "Quit:  The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away." Infertility is not mentioned, but it's certainly relevant...! 
• Those of us who wind up childless not by choice often feel like we have to "compensate" in some way by doing something big and bold and spectacular with our lives. That's why I loved this recent article from the New York Times by Sarah Wildman:  "I Don’t Need My Life to Be Remarkable."  (Content warning: the story involves a child with cancer.) Sample passage: 

Many years ago, before we had children, an old family friend who was a therapist offered a gentle bit of advice to my partner, Ian, who was wrestling with his future after leaving the Peace Corps early: Don’t look for every moment to be a 10, she told him. Sometimes you have to celebrate the fours, fives and sixes.

When Ian repeated it to me, we laughed. It felt like settling, if not an outright failure, not to seek something better. Up to that point we had always looked beyond where we stood to other, brighter moments. It would become a bit of a family joke between us: If something went awry we’d say, “Can you celebrate a one or a two?”

I’m no longer laughing. I’ve come to see the wisdom in not just seeking but finding joy in the mundane, in the unremarkable, even in the frankly boring, particularly in this era of global — and personal — illness. I realize I am far from unique in my efforts to appreciate the moment. It is the essence of mindfulness, the stuff of my (often failed) efforts to meditate. But it has allowed me to stand still when I might otherwise never stop moving.

#MicroblogMondays: Heardle

I never did get into Wordle -- but then I discovered Heardle, and now I'm addicted. :)  It's basically "Name That Tune" for the Internet era. 

Did you know there are decade-specific versions too??  (I learned this earlier this month from my longtime penpal (*cough* -- enabler, lol) in New Zealand (thanks, J9!). Heardle 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s, anyone?? (There are probably versions for the 2000s & 2010s, too, but since I suck at anything music-related past the mid-1990s, I don't bother with those, lol.)  The original Heardle is now owned by Spotify;  the decade versions are powered by Soundcloud and tend to skew towards British artists and bands, some of them unknown or not very well known to me -- so I don't always get those either, but I'm still far more successful than I am with the original Heardle. 

Once in a while, the song of the day is "unavailable in your location" (something to do with distribution rights, I suppose?), but they will give you a link to the answer so as not to spoil your streak/stats.  In that case, I click over to the answer... if I think it's a song I would have been able to easily identify, I take the answer;  if not, I pass. (For example, today's 60s Heardle song was unavailable in my area. The answer was "Mellow Yellow" by Donovan. I knew I would have easily gotten that one, so I took the win. ;)  )  

As I expected, I'm doing much better on the decades versions, and the 1960s & 1970s versions in particular.  Current stats (from playing on my cellphone -- the stats don't seem to sync between phone & laptop? -- as of this morning, Sept. 26th):  

• Heardle (original):  37.5% (21/56) correct, including 6 on the first guess and 8 within 3 (and 35 where I couldn't get it at all..!). 
• Heardle 60s:  95.7% (22//23), including 14 on the first guess, and only one that I didn't get at all. 
• Heardle 70s:  79.2% (19/24), including 12 on the first guess and 4 on the second, and 5 I didn't get at all. (Including today's -- "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads, duh. I KNEW I knew the song but just could not place it before my guesses ran out!) 
• Heardle 80s:  42.9% (9/21), including 3 on the first guess, and 12 I didn't get at all. 
• Heardle 90s:  20.8% (5/24), including 19 I couldn't get at all. :p   

Do you play Heardle? 

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

"The Bullet That Missed" by Richard Osman

"The Bullet That Missed" by Richard Osman is the third/latest installment of The Thursday Murder Club mysteries, featuring a loveable quartet of aging amateur detectives who, instead of playing golf or knitting, are spending their golden years trying to solve cold cases. There's former union leader/tough guy Ron; gentle, well-mannered psychiatrist Ibrahim; tough-as-nails MI5 agent Elizabeth; and slightly batty nurse and diarist Joyce (and her new puppy, Alan!), all residents of an upscale British retirement village. Also returning: handsome Polish construction worker/handyman Bogdan, local police officers Chris & Donna, and local crime boss Connie Johnston, who has sworn vengeance against Ron for putting her in jail (one of the outcomes of Book #2).  

The story picks up shortly after the last one ("The Man Who Died Twice") left off. In this installment, the gang is looking at the unsolved case of a local TV anchor whose car went off a cliff and whose body was never found. At the same time, Elizabeth is being threatened by a mysterious new adversary who is pressuring/blackmailing her to commit a murder of her own. 

In addition to the main and supporting characters we've come to know and love from the previous two books, there are a few new characters thrown into the mix who may or may not become regulars in the future. (I'm hoping they will.)  And like the other books, there's wit, humour, plot twists and red herrings galore. Quite simply, it's a whole huge lot of fun. (The chapter where Ron's new girlfriend takes him to a spa had me in absolute stitches -- as did the chapter where the club confronts a would-be assassin en masse.)

I can't wait for TMC #4.  :)  (Currently due in September 2023... a whole year away!!  :(   )  

I've rated the previous two books 5 stars each. I'm giving this one 5 stars too -- but in some ways, I think it's my favourite TMC book yet.  :)  (My reviews of "The Thursday Murder Club" and "The Man Who Died Twice," here and here.)  

I would recommend reading these books in order, as each one so far has picked up where the others left off, and there are certain storylines that continue from one volume to the next. 

This was Book #38 read to date in 2022 (and Book #2 finished in September), bringing me to 84% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

Odds & ends & funerals for the weekend

• Last Friday, dh's aunt (his mom's sister) died at the age of 89. (I mentioned it in my #MicroblogMondays post earlier this week.) 
• I was still dealing with my cold (I'm doing better, but not 100 per cent yet), and of course I don't want to come down with anything worse before we head west to see my family in two weeks' time... so we took our own car to the afternoon visitation on Tuesday (even though we often go to these things together with BIL & SIL), and I kept my N-95 mask on almost the entire time. (I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who also wore masks... nowhere near all who came, of course, but more than I had anticipated.)  
• There was an evening session as well, and many of the cousins who came to the afternoon session stayed on for that -- heading over to a nearby restaurant to eat in between. They invited us to come along, and if these were normal times, we would have gladly said yes. I miss getting together with them. But we still haven't eaten in a restaurant since March 2020, and as I said, I'm trying to be extra-cautious right now before our trip west -- so we sent our regrets and headed home. We saw them all again (plus the cousins who came to the evening visitation) the next morning at the funeral mass & committal. (We wore masks then too.) 
• SIL called us from their car as we were driving home from the funeral -- she & BIL, their aunt, her daughter and son-in-law were all going out for lunch at a restaurant near our condo building, and did we want to come? Again, regretfully, we said thanks  no thanks. It was nice to be asked, even though I'm pretty sure they knew we'd say no...! 
• Dh's cousin gave a lovely eulogy... which of course made me wonder: who (if anyone) will eulogize me when I'm gone? (And what will they say??  lol)  
• And now, we get to do it all over again...!  :(  This morning, we had a text (not unexpected) from dh's cousin:  HER mother died, age 91. We are just waiting to hear about the arrangements. 
• This aunt was dh's mother's sister-in-law (married to her oldest brother), and had been living at the same seniors residence as the other aunt for the past several years. She was in good health until just recently, and spent the last few weeks in hospice/palliative care, where she was still asking for Tim Hortons "iced caps" (iced cappucinos) almost to the very end. Her daughter texted another cousin while we were all at the funeral home for the other aunt, saying the priest had been called to give last rites, so we knew the end was near. This aunt said she hoped she & the other aunt would "go hand in hand," and she pretty much got her wish. 
• Dh lived at their house for the first few years of his life, before his dad bought their own house, a few blocks away, in the Greektown area of Toronto. All the relatives lived near each other in those days, but this family was the closest to them, geographically, and he & BIL were particularly close to the two kids -- the daughter is two years older than dh, and the son is the same age as BIL. (He's referred to elsewhere in this blog as "Cousin/Neighbour" -- he lived (and still lives) a few blocks from us in our old community.)  
• I was able to wear my dressy capris and sandals to the first aunt's funeral... but I think this one will have to be long pants, shoes & socks! Right on cue on the first day of fall, the weather turned cooler, and since then, it's gotten even chillier! 
• I know a lot of people who are positively giddy over the advent of fall this week. I like fall too -- the end of the extreme heat & humidity, the beautiful fall colours (Ontario is one of the best places in the world to see them, I think!) -- but it's a hard/sad time of year for me too. Essentially, it's a season when everything starts to die -- plants, tree leaves, the old year, the light (darkness is already coming way too early for my liking). And way too many people I love have died at this time of year too. 
• Case in point: see above. :(  
• Last year at this time, dh's cousin's brother-in-law died in early October -- followed by his brother/her husband, a day later (!!) and then their mother/her MIL, with a month after them. Yikes!!  
• My grandparents both died in October, almost a year to the day apart from each other -- Grandpa in 1998, Grandma in 1999. And Grandpa died just a few days after I had returned to work after Katie's stillbirth. 
• (*CLUNK!!*) -- That was me, keeling over in shock (lol), after Infertile Phoenix recently pointed her readers to an article on CNN with the message that it's OK to quit doing things -- AND!! quitting infertility treatment is used as one of the examples!!!  
• I've read articles before with the same message (and they're tagged on this blog as "the Q word," lol), but I don't think I have EVER seen a mainstream media article supporting the idea that it's OK to quit infertility treatments. Wow!!     
• (*CLUNK!!* -- again! lol) I have Bloglovin' on my opening set of tabs, even though (apart from one brief blip) it hasn't been working/up for a full month -- since Aug. 23rd (!). Lo and behold, there it was when I turned on my laptop this afternoon!!  I'm enjoying it while it lasts....! 

#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends from a busy week

This past week or two has been one huge blur. I am floundering, trying to keep up with email and blog posts and notifications and everything else coming at me, all at once...! 

• First, being sick -- for more than a week now. :p  It started with a very sore throat, and proceeded to sneezing, a full head and loose cough (which is still hanging in there...). I am feeling better overall, but definitely not 100% yet. I have not been out of the house in more than a week. :p  I was so looking forward to getting out a bit, now that my surgeries are over and I'm recovered from those. No such luck...! 
• I took another rapid test for covid this morning -- which, like the previous two, earlier on, was negative. But I'm still obviously sick. :p  Bah humbug. :( 
• Last week, I had to switch my follow-up appointment with the surgeon who did my gallbladder removal surgery from in-office to over the phone. I was supposed to see my optometrist tomorrow as a follow-up to my eye surgery (and possibly get some new glasses), but I called this morning to let them know I'm not well, and now that's been postponed until late October. Sigh. 
• Second, it was World Childless Week. (You can find all my related posts for this year's WCW tagged "WCW 2022".)  I have waded through about three of the seven days' worth of amazing submissions on the WCW site so far, managed to catch several of the webinars live and watch a few more after the fact. All WCW content from every year since it began is archived on the WCW site. 
• Third, of course, the Queen. I was up at 5 a.m. this morning to watch the funeral, and barely budged from my chair for the next seven hours until the last royal disappeared through the gate into the castle after the service of committal at Windsor. Adding to the fun, I spent several hours live texting with my penpal of the past 45 years (!!) from New Zealand (where it was late at night), as we have done for the last several royal events (plus an Oscar ceremony or two, lol). My cousin in Manitoba -- half Scottish on his dad's side, and a retired police officer -- also texted me when he realized I was up -- he was watching too. 
• NOBODY does pomp and ceremony better than the Brits!! 
• I teared up a few times. I got the chills when the Westminster Abbey choir started singing "I am the Resurrection and the Life..."  But I didn't lose it until the long walk up to the chapel at Windsor, when the BBC announcer helpfully pointed out the Queen's pony Emma, patiently waiting near the gates for the coffin to pass by. And then the two corgis, which totally finished me off. ;) 
• Did anyone else notice the Google logo on the search page was totally black today in honour of the Queen?? 
• Every now & then over the past few days, I clicked over to YouTube to watch a few minutes of the live feed of the Queen lying in state and the people who waited hours and hours (and hours!) in "the Queue of all Queues," filing past (and also to check out the live updates on how long the queue was). Many people paused to bow/nod their heads -- but I saw others doing full from-the-waist bows and curtsies. One man dropped to one knee and crossed himself. I saw one middle-aged woman bow her head & then, with a sad smile on her face, blow a kiss at the casket. That one got me teary.  
• Fourth, dh's aunt (his mother's sister) passed away on Friday. She was 89. It was one of those deaths that was kind of a blessing, in a way -- her quality of life has not been good the last few years, especially since the pandemic began -- and we haven't been able to see her in quite some time, because of that (although dh & his brother got to see her one last time in the hospital last weekend, before she died). 
• (His mother's youngest sister lives near us. She's 77, and is the last of her siblings.) 
• Visitation is tomorrow (two hours in the afternoon and then two in the evening, with a two-hour break in between), and the funeral is Wednesday. I've been debating whether I should go, because of my cold. As I said, I've tested negative for covid, but it's still been a bad cold.... but not going at all seems unthinkable. Dh thinks we should go for the afternoon tomorrow, pay our respects and say hi to everyone, and then we'll just go home. I will certainly wear a mask -- I would even if I didn't have a cold (but I am willing to bet I'll be one of the very few people wearing one). (Most of the cousins will likely be staying for the whole six hours -- the daughters have ordered food for the family for in between the sessions, to be served in the funeral home's reception centre.)
• When dh's mother died, 40 years ago, both sides of the family rallied round dh, his younger brother and their dad -- none of whom knew anything about cooking or keeping house. This aunt had them over for dinner just about every single night (and she was an excellent cook! -- dh said that out of all his aunts, her cooking was the closest to his mom's), did their laundry and cleaned the house regularly, on top of her own. They all adored her. I did too, once I met her -- 39 years ago, in the summer of 1983. 
• I'm sure I wasn't exactly what she had in mind for a wife for dh -- I wasn't Italian! -- but she never made me feel anything less than welcomed and loved. Dh's dad asked her to help set things up in our apartment while we were on our honeymoon -- I hadn't been there since we signed the rental agreement a few months earlier, and we did NOT have much stuff!  He gave her some money and she bought sheets & a bedspread and had the bed all made up, and stocked our kitchen cupboards and refrigerator with some staples. 
• I remember her visiting for the first time after we got back, and exclaiming over how clean and neat everything was. "She's obviously not looking too hard...!"  I muttered to dh. 
• We had many meals at her house over the years, especially in the early years of our marriage -- always leaving with leftovers or baking or a jar of tomato sauce. 
• We will sure miss her. 
• On a related note: it's been quite a while since we've had to dress up for anything (pre-pandemic, certainly! -- and we certainly don't dress up very often at all since we both left work in 2013-14) -- so we pulled a few things out of our closet yesterday to try on before dh's aunt's funeral events -- to make sure they still FIT, for one thing! (lol).  
• Yes, they fit -- BUT! OMG... the DUST!!  lol  When I took my pants off the hanger, you could clearly see a line where the dust had settled! And dh's dress shirt -- one of the few he has left -- was slightly (but not too noticeably -- I hope...!) yellowed on the collar.
• Needless to say, everything went into the washing machine. I got out the ironing board and pressed it all this afternoon while watching highlights from the Queen's funeral all over again. 
• Time is zooming along. A week from Friday is our cottage weekend with BIL, SIL & dh's cousins, and then the weekend after that, we'll be heading "home" for (Canadian) Thanksgiving to see my family. And we have a LOT of things that need to get done before then...!  

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

World Childless Week 2022, Day Seven: Moving Forwards

Day Seven of World Childless Week  -- the final day -- is focused on "Moving Forwards." (This has been the theme of the final day of WCW for its entire six-year existence.) 

We don’t need a big Plan B, C or D; we don’t need any plans at all. All we need is the courage to make small changes, the time to notice the positive differences and the acceptance that moving forwards can also include stopping points, roundabouts and u-turns. It doesn’t matter how we get to the final destination, or how long it takes. We just need to love ourselves at each point and celebrate each milestone. 

How have you moved forwards? 

The passage of time and looking back on certain milestones will often bring a shock of recognition of how things have changed, how far I've come and how differently I feel now than I did then. (One advantage of getting older is that fewer and fewer people ask and hint and prod you about pregnancy plans... although eventually, you start getting questions about how many grandchildren you have instead...!)

I think back to one particular incident, at Christmastime, a few years after we had thrown in the towel on infertility treatments, which showed me that perhaps I was further down the road of acceptance than I had realized.  I wrote about it here. 

Another measure of progress would be my increasing ability/willingness to enter a Baby Gap store. Once, it was a source of pain, to be avoided. I eventually did get to the point where I could go in to buy a baby shower gift (even if was often just a gift card...!). These days, I love to go there (and other children's wear stores) to shop for Little Great-Nephew -- albeit the little girls' racks still have the power to give me occasional pangs... 

There are probably other markers of progress that I've written about over the years, although I can't recall any other specific posts to share here with you right now. 

One thing I remember from our pregnancy loss support group days is that you never realized just how far you'd come down this road less travelled until someone new arrived, fresh and raw in their own grief. I still see that to some extent today when I read social media posts and responses from younger women who are new to the stunning realization that they will not have the children they assumed they would have. 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added every 15 minutes throughout the day) and FIVE free, live webinars and workshops:  

• 5 a.m. ET:  "Meditation: Using Gentle Self-Care to Move You Forwards," a workshop with Bindi Shah. 
• 7 a.m. ET:  "Hello You: Online Body Connection," a workshop with Victoria Robinson. 
• 9 a.m. ET:  "Is it Possible to Move Forward?" -- a workshop with Helen Segal, focusing on creativity and the healing arts. 
• 11 a.m. ET:  "The Chanting Circle: Let Flow" with Helen Louise Jones. 
• 2 p.m. ET:  "Accepting the New Me," a webinar hosted by Stephanie Joy Phillips, with Victoria Firth, Kat Brown, Lana Brown and Lucy North. 

All webinars will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Seven page for anyone who cannot make the live events.