Hard
to believe that the first thing
I was doing on the first day of the 2001 was cleaning up cat barf.
I sure hope it's not any indication of what the year to come will
bring.
2001
... I can't believe it's here. It impresses me more than making
it to 2000 somehow...probably just because of the movie. But I
imagine it was a bit unrealistic of me to think that I'd wake
up to the strains of “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” now wasn't it?
Cat barf seems about right considering my attitude of late. So
I think the first thing I really need to work on is some attitude
adjustment. I consulted my computer on that, and all it said was
“I'm sorry Jo, I'm afraid I can't do that...”
~~~~
One
good cure for my blues is always visiting with my granddaughters,
who are 10 and 8. So I looked forward to their arrival early in
the afternoon for an overnight visit. We haven't had them here
for a while and it is always fun to spend time with them.
I
like to try to do something special with them--go to a museum,
or the aquarium or some thing they don't ordinarily do. But sometimes
we just go to my studio and maybe do a project or go to
a movie or even just rent movies and hang out. They bring their
own gameboy games and use our computers and always seem to enjoy
whatever we do. So I just accept that I just can't be a super
gramma all the time.
This
time we went to get videos. Near the video store is a Pizza Hut
and they wanted to get pizza so we did, and while we waited we
walked over to Walgreen's to get some other stuff. The snow is
still not shoveled from the sidewalks and while they leap with
the agility of little deer over the ice and drifts, I'm feeling
my age again as I plod along behind them. We were were laughing
and joking about how they were supposed to help the elderly as
they ran back and offered to to take my arm.
After
pizza we watched “X-Men” which was pretty good.
This
morning started off with lots of laughs about how funny gramma's
“bed head hair” looked. Definitely a more amusing start to the
day than the cat barf scenario of the previous morning.
We
were going to see the Grinch movie later, so we all just killed
time. The younger one typed stories on the old Royal portable
--they have both been fascinated by it since they were little.
Even though they are very computer literate, they've had a lot
of fun with that old typewriter over the years. They other one
looked up web sites to find the hacker workarounds for Gameboy
games.
I
have one of those Swedish Christmas carousels with the nativity
scenes--the kind with six candles. When the candles are lit, the
heat rises hitting fan blade shaped baffles which makes the carousel
turn. With my supervision, they experimented for a while trying
the baffles in different positions and configurations to see what
would happen. Lighting and blowing out different candles.
It was a good physics lesson. By far the most amusing part was
making it all go backwards and when somehow we all started describing
the scene using backwards words as if the story were being told
backwards ...they were carrying “hrrym,” “dlog,” and “ecnesniknarf”,
and so on which just sent them into gales of laughter. These kids
are being raised as Roman Catholics. I felt kind of guilty about
encouraging them, but it was they who thought it up in the first
place. I did mention that some religious people might not think
it was all that funny. But I really couldn't see any real harm
in it, it was just clever word play. Then again I am not religious.
We
finally rushed off to see the Grinch movie which was OK, not at
all as bad as I had expected it to be, bearing in mind that it
is a kid's movie. Afterwards it was off to drop them of where
their mother was working, and to say good bye.
I
enjoyed having them, and one thing I really want to do is to make
a regular plan to have them over more often than we have been
doing. It's really true that kids make you feel younger and happier
and I want some more of that in my new year.
~~~~
I
hesitate to make resolutions because I really find them hard to
keep. I think I'd rather promise myself to take another look at
what's making me unhappy and try to make some real changes to
try to make myself happier. Even just some small steps toward
attitude improvement would be progress. Some of those steps have
to do with taking care of my physical self--like really making
those appointments to see a new doctor about my knee and my other
aches and pains, to make sure I don't have anything seriously
wrong with me, and just to get a tune up.
The
other thing which I must do is to take steps to make some new
connections and some re-connections with more real life friends.
I know that's something which I have very seriously neglected
for a while now.
And,
last but not at all least is that I must find a way somehow to
reconnect with my creative self. Maybe writing here will help
me with that somehow.
I
don't know how I got here from cat barf, so I have no insightful
ending. But I do know it's 2001 and I know I don't want to come
back here next year when 2002 comes along and find myself going
“....aaaach...aaaach...aaach!” with the late nineties still stuck
in my craw.
Happy
New Year!