New Year's
It's warm here, almost 60 degrees the past few days, so the two feet of snow have melted into slushy puddles. New Year's Steve and I took the kids to my parents'. We went uptown Oxford and there wasn't much going on. I did see a friend Gina at The Brick where she works. We talked for a few min. and she's such a kewl person. (That's Ed's sister, btw, you know, Ed from the previous blog entry for the 0 or 1 of you who EVER read these epistles.)
I've been injecting myself with heavy amounts of CNN and FOX lately, drawn into the eddy of the tsunami story like so many people...Oh I want to take those children home, I keep saying I want to adopt one. Of course I know it's too shocking to adopt an orphan right away and take the little one to a strange land with strange faces and a strange language, which would terrify anyone but a baby (think China and Korea and Russia and Romania and Guatemala, where Americans adopt so many kids)...but I still would love to take one home. It's not ideal because I don't think Steve would approve and besides, Steve and I have problems. Not that the children need to go to Mike and Carol Brady, either. Well I think it's just human or maybe maternal instinct to see little ones and want to just grab them and love them, especially if they're in pain.
So Steve and I went uptown tonight and sloshed around in the warm night air. It was fun and I played a game of Galaga at the Brick. It's a game I was good at Waaaaaayyyyback in the 80's. I'm not as good as I used to be. It was so uneventful that we ended up coming back to the folks' and watching New Year's pass uneventfully at Times Square on my parents' plasma TV that my dad has still not figured out a full year later. He still cusses at the remote just like he just won't deal with computers (though I'm on his right now). He's at the age where new words like "blog" and even "web site" are just getting to be a foreign language. Another example: my parents travel a LOT. But they always go with one of two travel groups that has someone to make ALL the arrangements. It's all pre-done for them. My brother Dan and his wife Tracy and I were kind of laughing about it- I said to him don't even TRY to show them how to buy airplane tickets online. My dad had tried to buy my brother Joe's ticket online and he just kept getting more and more frustrated until Tracy just did it in a few clicks. Or when my son put a t-shirt from strongbad on his Christmas list "for the Troxel side", my dad tried to order it online. He got as far as finding the website, but he kept getting so frustrated at the pop-ups that he gave up and called Dave and Rachael to do it. :) Dan, who saves money by wheeling dealing any way he can, also just can't understand that my parents will pay twice the price just to have a travel agent book everything for them instead of planning their own trip. OK, Dan, just let them do their thing. Now my mom will try sometimes to do a few of these things but she's got this mental block too- it was momentous when she finally learned to use their old computer (two computers ago) as a word processor and chuck the typewriter. :) I guess I will be that way too someday. The brain physically changes as we get older, and that's why people get more set in their ways- learn more slowly- I've tried to teach older people a new language and it is so tough for them- but there are a few people who defy the odds and keep learning and keep that mental pliability- what is the secret? Keep challenging yourself? Get out of your comfort zone? Just to keep that mental acuity- man I don't want to lose that. I have to always remind myself to keep seeing things from a fresh perspective. Wasn't Moses 80 when he led the people out of Egypt? (Why were they Israelites then and Israelis now? Anybody know?)
Sorry this blog is so long. Feel free to skip it. But if you've actually read to here, I guess you didn't. Sorry.
posted by Ann @ 1:19 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I must respond to your comment about older people planning their International trips through travel agents. First of all, your mother has been to France many times, and she has done almost all of her own planning for that. She arranged a wonderful trip for them and for us in 1997, and one of the side benefits that we arranged while we were there was a flight in a small airplane, which Chuck piloted, over the Normandy coast. We aren't at our age, afraid to do things on our own. But there are so many wonderful tours available, fairly inexpensive, that we would miss way too much going alone. Busses can take you places, and get you right in, where you'd spend extra hours making arrangements, and you still would not be able to see nearly as many things in a short time. Seeing what we saw in Eastern Europe this year would have been impossibly difficult on our own. At this stage of life, saving money is not our goal. Enjoying the time we have left, without hassle, is far more important.
And as for using the internet to buy plane tickets, either domestically or internationally, we personally use a travel agent who is so good that no matter what the best deal we could find on the internet was, she got us better one.
Perhaps it isn't the new technology that is so frustrating to some older people as the fact that they are in a position where it is easier and more comfortable to hire someone else to do some of their work. Learning new things after retirement is a constant challenge, and while many of us keep trying to do just that, unfortunately there comes a time when it just isn't worth it to make the effort.
You just said you don't play Galaga as well as you did in the 1980s. Why not? Would it be worth the effort to try to regain your touch? I would guess not, and in a lot of ways that is the same issue. You just don't care about some things any more. And losing your skills, whatever they are, starts very slowly. It's just harder and harder to keep on top of everything as your physical challenges become greater.
Your Great Aunt J and Uncle L who live near me have each just gotten themselves brand new computers, and they are both trying hard to learn all the new tricks. And they're somewhere around the octogenarian ballpark. It's hard when some computer expert you trust tells you you should have Windows XP Professional, instead of the home version. Well, that was stupid, but how is someone who is struggling to learn the simple things supposed to know that?
You young people who have been exposed to computers your whole adult life have no idea how difficult moving to a virtual world can be. And I'm speaking as one who spent my entire career as a successful mainframe systems analyst.
But we across generations all have the same goal: to be happy. I hope all of us, across the world, can be.
Aunt E.
You're right. Dan thinks completely differently than my dad. Dan's always in the mix finding plans and ways of making money just by using equity and appreciation. Just like he can't imagine finding airplane tickets by going to an agent, my dad isn't likely to shop the lowest air fares online soon.
I personally have used travel agents, too, when they only charge a few bucks to reserve a ticket. But probably I will use online most of the time soon.
I'd like to see my dad get out and do more things at this point, like maybe owning a small hardware store or making homemade lures such as always been his dream. But right now I think he's enjoying traveling in his travel group with Mom. And they sure are good people. If I were THEIR parents, those would be the friends I'd choose for them. :)
Every generation faces this issue. Just older people a few generations ago didn't want to fiddle with those newfangled contraptions called televisions- keep breaking down. Happy with a good old radio by the fireside.
But you did call me one of "you young people"- :) that's funny but I also remember when Jean called you and Chuck "You Kids".
I am very hurt that you want to demean us, apparently for the crime of ageing. It would seem that your Bible has only nine commandments. We deserve better. Mom.
I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to hurt you. I think I should take off this blog entry. I seem to have offended a lot of people.
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