I'm getting seriously concerned for my mother. There seems to be a parental death virus sweeping through my life at the moment. First it was Walt's mother, then it was Charlotte's mother. Tonight I received a call from Gilbert's niece that HER mother had died this morning. I'm running out of friends/relatives who still have mothers and I'm eyening mine very protectively!
I don't mean to be flippant about the death of all of these loved ones, but they were all old, all in pain of one sort of another, and all ready to die, so it's a bittersweet thing. There is the pain of the loss for the survivors, but the comfort of the loss of pain for the one who has passed.
And if deaths come in 3s, maybe this is a good thing and my mother is safe until the next round starts.... I dunno.
I got lured back into the classroom tonight. I had said I would not do another blogging class because the students' needs were beginning to go beyond my expertise. I know what I use very well, but I just have a simple little blog. When you start trying to figure out how to make a web page out of it, I don't have the answers and so I was finding that I answered more and more questions with "I don't know." That was when I made the decision not to teach the course again.
But I got a call from my friend Anne, from the Davis Community Network. Anne runs an Internet Users Group Meeeting, which is mostly seniors trying to grope their way onto and around the big scary internet. The group has been going for 2-3 years now, and I went to my first meeting maybe 6 months ago. I can't remember why I went, but it was on Anne's invitation, to maybe help out. Maybe it was a class on blogging. I really don't remember.
I enjoyed my time there and knew several in the class and fully intended to go back again, but somehow many things intervened. They only meet once a month and the meeting dates never seemed to mesh with my own schedule.
But Anne was doing an introduction to Flickr tonight and asked if I could come and help work in smaller groups with 2 or 3 people and help them learn how to upload pictures to Flickr.
This worked better than the blogging class because I actually knew (or could figure out) all of the questions.
I did learn one important thing myself, though. I've been eyeing notebook computers wondering if it would be worth it to get one for traveling. The main thing that has stopped me so far is that I didn't think I could load the program I needed for my journal onto it. And then I decided to sponsor another Compassion child insted, so that took it completely out of possibility.
However, someone in the class tonight had one and I got to play around with it a llittle. ABSOLUTELY NO WAY!!! The print on that screen was so tiny I could barely read it without a magnifying glass.
Nice to learn that I've just saved myself a few hundred dollars!
You won't believe what I'm doing awake at this hour of the morning. I've been watching an English Mastiff trying to birth some puppies. Check this site for puppy cam, though based on what she's doing right now--panting and licking herself, and the light in the room just went on so her owners can see her better--I suspect they will be born by then.
Oh! We have a puppy!!!! Will there be a second....?
D
3 comments:
No notebook. I said all that business about screens being too small to see -- phones, smart phones, iPads. Some of us have suffered through the "I can't see" business already, and I can imagine it happening more and more. Sometimes manufacturers don't think things through.
Remember when they were selling portable TVs with 10-inch screens? Would you want one? Dedicated rockers need to remember, they will also have to be able to read the closed captions!
Disaster! All my fault! I left my Kindle on the first of my two flights yesterday. I've reported it to Southwest, and have notified Amazon so they can "deactivate" the device until it's returned to me. Oh, dear, what will I do if it's gone forever. I know I won't lose my books, but I'll have to get something new. Trauma!!!!
Bev, be very careful with your "stuff" on your upcoming trip. At least I didn't lose mine in Cambodia.
Also, I meant to say about your mom...no great words of wisdom. But my just-finished trip was to see my 91-year-old aunt in South Texas. She called last Saturday and asked me to come. I knew she meant it for a last visit, so I was on a plane the next day. I stayed until Friday. She's not actually that close, but she's definitely "ready". All I could do was tell her that "it was all right". That we loved her and would miss her terribly, but that it was okay. It's so DAMNED hard! She's just miserable the way things are right now, although still the same wonderful lady she's always been. Obviously, much like your mom. Oh, dear......
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