Aqua fugit...

My mum and dad were conscientious parents, who cared about our bones and skin and teeth.  I swear.  But I can never remember their saying, "Don't forget to drink lots of water...."

I struggle with drinking enough water every day.  Really, it doesn't occur to me.  I have had at least two cups of coffee every day of my life since I was twelve.  Milk? I couldn't get enough of it.  Orange juice was the delight of my life once I stopped drinking it from cans.

Water just isn't tasty to me.  My kids, my friends, my grandchildren, my doctor---they all drink water as if it were the most natural thing imaginable.  All my grandchildren have water bottles of various sizes and colours and don't leave home without them.

I too have a water bottle, although I would be hard-pressed to remember the last time I spontaneously picked it up.  I have lovely glasses, some of which I bought especially to entice me to seek water at regular intervals.  I have good intentions.
Is it a generational thing?  A geographical one?  Am I wired counteraquatically?

In Random Order, just for a change

A few strange  things that happened to me today, in random order:

• A Rogers chocolate, wrapped in distinctive pink paper, which was on my bedside table when I went to sleep, was not there when I woke up.  Was it Dave or am I sleep-eating?
• My laptop is behaving like a brand-new Dell-certified XPS M1330, with no cursor wandering, no mysterious highlighting and with perfect decorum.  No reason is discernible.
• I found toothpaste on my bathroom mirror at a spot 2 feet over my head.  No one else brushes teeth in that bathroom.
• I unexpectedly found a photo of my father when he was in his 40s and suddenly felt 22 again.
• I turned on a borrowed IPad and actually found the menu.
• I voluntarily, and kind of dreamily, drank a glass of water when I got up
• Jeans that left a nasty tummy crease yesterday are practically falling off my hips today.
• I tried rolling a banana in a ground blend of sugar, chocolate and cinnamon.  I didn't like it. (part two is the strange thing)

Autobiography, simplified

Talking to a friend today, I was struck by her telling me that she is in Chapter 3 of her life.  I couldn't resist telling her that I was still in the Prologue, but even while I was being a smart-ass, I was thinking that I could indeed break my life into several chapters.

The Unheeding:  wherein I ate, drank and learned
The All-knowing: wherein I skipped through youth and adolescence
The Mistaken: wherein I hit the age of 22, panicked because I was not married yet à la Seventeen magazine, studied the prospects and chose the most needy
The Unheeding (2):  wherein I did my best to live in a cocoon, exiting only to take care of my children and to buy or borrow books
The Blossoming:  wherein I realized that I had some value, and determined not just to look for a better life, but to grab it, shake it silly and emerge a flashy butterfly
The Untrammelled Growing:  wherein I repositioned myself, fell in love, built a fine relationship that favoured me, my partner, my children and practically anyone I came across, and relearned what joy was all about.

Actually, I'm still there.  It's been a long stretch, but I think I can eke it out for a while yet.

Please don't read this blog---it's just for Dell

 seem to be inflicted with the probworried that b  eautiful B Monday morning.

Thought I'd give my laptop one more chance, but it didn't get off to a good start.  I'm w Luddite might have.  ems alorried tht because the Dell guy is calling tomorrow my XPS M1330 will heal itself, leaving me and Dave looking like crabby elderly Luddites.
oard.  Lnicide!ooking at the screen today makes me want to commit some sort of electro
I've never wanted to be a Luddite, and I think that excuses me right there, but I

Part of what makes this frustrating is that I learned to use the QWERTY keyboard when I was just a lass, and one of the prime requirements was that you not look at the keyb

I'm hoping that Dell finds this a compelling proof of this laptop's evil intent.

why I'm done (2)

een having the same kind of trouble with her laptopatty sent me a note to tell me she's b.

Is it any wonder?

Why I'm Done

I am feeling so justified!  Dave decided he'd call Dell to tell them that I was having trouble with my machine, but before doing that, he took a day working at his stuff using the laptop.  The cursor bounced around maniacally, large bits of text got highlighted and/or disappeared and he wasn't wearing my bracelets.  Nor was he amused.

He spent hours this afternoon with a Dell guy, doing mysterious stuff, got a promise for a follow-up call from the Dg and rang off.  He then sat down to write himself a note about what had happened, and WHOA! the cursor kept going walkabout, and now he's in a rare snit.

Since I started writing this, the cursor has jumped 8 times, taking bits of text and depositing them in random locations, so that I have to find, erase and retype.  But I feel justified, and that's almost as satisfying as having a non-rabid keyboard.

One of the things I had to do was change the number of times I said the cursor had jumped.  I started with 4.

Even though I feel justified, it's too frustrating to try to blog, and Dave isn't here for me to chase with a slipper, so I'm done.

How Robyn Rules

Robyn, our youngest granddaughter will be 2 next week, and things are starting to change a bit.  She's a go-ahead kid, walked early, talked early, chatters all the time and has quite a rich fantasy life.  She talks and reads books to her "babies" and is quite independent.

Just how independent was demonstrated for us this morning.  The night before, her sleepover night, we'd pulled out our table from in front of the window, opened up the leaves and put a tablecloth on because we had company and couldn't sit at the counter for dinner.  On a whim, because we'd been talking about how she was just no longer a baby, Emily let her sit on a big chair at the table.  Like a big girl.

This morning, she got in bed with me and Dave and her baby and started chatting.  then she stopped chatting.  Apparently her baby was hungry, and as she told us, she'd be right back.  I kind of dozed until I heard a thump in the living room, and after that, I kind of ran.  The thump I'd heard was a drawer falling out of the chest where we keep our napkins and tablecloths; the stuff I hadn't heard was Robyn moving the chairs, opening up the tablecloth and jumping up trying to spread it over the table.

It was so adorable, and so scary all at once.

Once home, Emily and Morgan took another step along the she's not a baby anymore road by taking the sides down off her crib, putting a guard rail up and giving her a big girl bed.  They put her to bed, heard nothing but singing noises and finally, when the silence came, went in to see that she had been at her table drawing by nightlight and was now in the process of silently changing into her cat costume.  But she was doing it in bed.  

    

Clunk or clink?

I have arrived at a major turning point in my life.  But first the context.

For the last couple of months, I have been having a lot of trouble with my laptop.  I'll be writing or viewing something, and the laptop will arbitrarily highlight a big chunk of text; sometimes, waiting for my thought processes to catch up, I find that  the cursor has jumped to another place in the text and I've written something like:  I have been written something like: having a lot of trouble with my laptop.  It's not just annoying, it makes me do things like bonk my forehead on the counter.

I've been complaining about it to all kinds of people who are skeptical about it and to Dave who may be skeptical, but never says so, and we finally decided that he should try the keyboard to see if it happens for him.  It didn't.

For some reason, I remembered a time when I first used a wireless mouse, and after all kinds of unprecedented screw-ups, took the advice of the frustrated IT guy trying to help me and removed my 30 or so bracelets.  I hadn't done this before because they didn't come anywhere near the mouse, or in the present case, the keyboard.  They were beneath the desk, kind of snuggled up against my waist. "Mysteries of science", I muttered grumpily while noticing the absolute perfect order in which my computer was working.  But since I wasn't fond of the wireless  mouse, the whole thing became a non-issue.

So my dilemma:  ever since my kids were babies, I've worn upwards of 30 silver bracelets on my right arm---I like the look, I love the sound, and my kids could always find me.  As I got older, arthritis pushed me to reduce the number to 10---still lovely to listen to, and perfect for teething grandchildren.

So do I give up my computer or my bracelets?  Go for the essential or the beautiful?

Books in a Bunch, Knickers in a Twist

I am now on the fifth book of the George R.R. Martin series, A Song of Ice and Fire.  This, I think, is an amazing accomplishment for someone who can't remember if Liberia is in the Caribbean or Africa, or neither, and whose children suffer being called by the names of their siblings, cousins and pets.

These books have a mammoth cast of characters, a whole entirely new hierarchical system, and a huge and diverse set of communities, not to mention the cultural quirks that go along with these.  And yet, I persevere.  And reasonably well.

About 10 years ago, I decided not to follow any more book series.  Robertson Davies did it really well, P.D. James, Elizabeth George and Julia Spenser Churchill make compelling cases for ongoing stories about multi-layered individuals and their acquaintances.  I keep up with them all, and added Charles Todd and a wonderful Canadian author, Louise Penny.

I never intended to add George R.R., just as I never intended watching A Game of Thrones on TV.  Fifteen minutes into the first episode, I turned it off, repelled by what looked like gratuitous sex and violence, sometimes both at once.  I felt pretty virtuous.

I can't explain how I got from there to the fifth book in the series.

Elderly wisdom

Do you know how much damage you can do to a relatively clean mirror when you brush your teeth?

Try putting toothpaste on your electric toothbrush, right over the plastic cap, feeling it wriggle like a sonofabitch and smash into your teeth when you hit the "on" switch.

Then try laughing at yourself.