I have many tasks at hand today and focused first on organizing and downloading some photos to Kodak share to get prints so that I can update my father's scrapbook/album. These are photos from my cousin and our trips to PA. This is a task which I have expanded by my constant need to edit and improve things. Maybe this is my obsession. Isn't there an old story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne or Edgar Allan Poe about the person who keeps writing and tinkering to ensure their longevity? Or was that the builder of the Winchester Mystery House? Well maybe if there isn't such a tale, that's a sign I could write such fiction?
Enough, I am confined to quarters and resting and recovering, I hope, my left glutes from a strain I inflicted. I think it was the new non Curves ab-machine Friday which Teresa placed in the center of the room at Curves. Being brazenly adventurous and foolishly curious I got right on it, without instruction. I am not timid which has not been always a good thing. Anything that works and strengthens abs is for me. Teresa came over to advise right form after I'd exhausted my curiosity and tormented my left glutes beyond forgiveness! Usually I get these aches in my right side, but since Friday evening and persisting today, my left glute remains very angry with me! Enough Advil and it is masked. I thought I had it whipped but last night I hobbled. A night in bed and I hobble around better in the morning. So it's a grey frosty MN snowy day and I can keep occupied inside and recuperate! I'm not even interested in my local friendly chiropractor for an adjustment until this pain stops.
I noticed on a previous post that I referred to potential conversations with grand daughter on her visit. If anyone is curious and does not already know, none of those conversations occurred, instead this grandma bit her lips and tongue to prevent saying what she really thought. This was not the most pleasant visit; she came with a cold so I thought that had part to do with it, but it became apparrent the girl was beyond being not interested this trip. In fact, she moped, mourned and pined for her CA boyfriend and spent most of her time texting and phoning CA. If it was not him it was her Mom or her Mom's mother or her Dad! What is going on here! We are puzzled why she wanted to come for this winter visit? She wanted to see and experience winter which she did with a one hour outside experience and then viewed it from inside the house or car. I spoke briefly to her that this was not as much fun because of her phone preoccupation, even suggested that she set it aside for a bit, but she chose not to do so. Not conducive to talking; especially when she closed herself in the bedroom for hours on end.
I predict a train wreck ahead, and at the barest minimum a very rude awakening someday. One of my Curves colleagues admonished to forget it, that she had tried having their grand daughter live with them twice while going to school and all it did was aggravate themselves. "They will do what they want to do..." I am not meant to deal with pouting 19 year olds. Sadly by sheltering and over protecting their children, Jerry's son and wife have stifled their socialization and development with an insulating tight cocoon. I saw this clearly in Janine this visit, our 19 year old grand daughter has demonstrated regression to the age of 14. Water under the bridge unless some seeds we planted root. What an analogy--water and seeds....flowers or seeds of discontent?
BTW this brings back my favorite research project, do people triumph over their environment? DIL is clearly doing what she deems best for her child, repeating her own learned pattern of family insularity. She learned this from her own mother. I find this most peculiar in CA of all places where people generally mix and mingle freely. At least it was that way for us...it was so easy to meet people and make friends there. But not so they. Jerry observed years back that they are compulseively clannish with their relatives to the point of near exclusion of other friends. Then again maybe we are the strange ones, living away from family and making our own lives. In my case, 3000 miles across the country. Yet we think we did quite well. Jerry often comments that we were better off until his sister and his mother moved nearby in CA. He had been on his own from the age of 15, so he finds clinging to mom's skirts bizarrre.
Now back to my gadget to gather feedback. I have just downloaded and; installed my new 2010 Quicken and some investment analyses tools, so a simple Google gadget should not be vexing me. But it is and so I must get off this and go back to the settings and figure this out. Maybe the "followers" button is supposed to do it and I have that, but here I am thinking there must be something more.. that's another one of my character flaws or strengths---my curiosity and striving for always something more, different, better, to experience, see, read, do etc. Simple contentment escapes me...
Yes, Pat. Leaving comments leads others to your blog. Enjoyed my visit. Originally from MN also.
ReplyDelete