The Social Butterfly is a Luddite

Today is a cold, gray, rainy, mushy, and boring day.  Cannot do anything outside!  I am working with my library of photographs and deleting a bunch and blogging.  Hubby is reading his emails on his tiny phone screen and listening to Irish music.  

How he can manage email on a phone is always something I question!  He does lose emails and forget to answer others and that is why I encourage him to use his laptop more.  He has become more and more unable to work with his computer.  His age is part of it and now he actually fears using the devices.  Unfortunately, in our world, if you do not use a computer (and this is horribly true with the restrictions from the Pandemic) you lose touch with the world.  I was the one who got us both registered (at different locations) for our Covid shots after he messed up the first appointment.  We will be getting the second ones this month.

He got notice in his email that his car needed to be re-registered.  He kept putting off the task.  So, yesterday I had to go in and re-register his car for him.  Fortunately and surprisingly since it is a local government site, their interface was very simple and I almost wondered if I had completed it correctly until I got the email that verified that I had.  Now we wait to see if I actually did it correctly when the registration comes in the mail.

Last month Hubby gave a small webinar on extending vegetable growing across the three seasons via Zoom.  It was done in PowerPoint software and I spent hours and hours helping him with it.  The problem is that I would get all the typos, incorrect formatting, etc. removed, and then he would go back in to add something or edit some bulleted list and it would end up looking like he had selected three different presentation backgrounds!  Maybe he had!  I also provided the photos needed and learned that PowerPoint now can compress the slides automatically to reduce the bytes which saved me time.  Anyway, the whole experience made him even warier of computers and totally drained me! 

This is not the world for him because he is a very social person.  He loves talking to people.  He calls old classmates on the phone just to chat.  He will 'talk the leg off ' of the man or women at the restaurant that is completing our take-out order.  When the man comes to help with our stuff around the yard, he is right behind him talking away.  He is looking forward to a class reunion this fall of those in their late 70's.  He and another mate are planning on driving down to Florida together, and I am now hoping I can get out of it since they will be able to assist each other along the trip!  Maybe they can combine it with a fishing trip, which he would love.  With the increase in vaccinations, this looks more promising.

I really like people and I even love some people, but I would also love some time alone just moving around on a free schedule while he would be gone.  No meals on time, no helping someone find something, etc.  I am a loner and while I have finally accepted that, I actually wish I was a bit more amenable to social activities.  

A Shining Star

In the time of Covid, time itself seems to be moving in clods and clunks.  Most days go by pretty fast.  But there are others that make me realize how long I have been hiding out in my house.  The other day, I missed an old gardener friend and had not heard from her for several many months.  I realized then that the lockdowns and sheltering in place have changed everyone's perspective on time.

When our gardener meeting minutes came out I noticed she had dropped from several committees. I thought the worst but reminded myself that it had to be something normal. I tried to call but did not get her, so emailed. She responded right away and wrote that she was fine and that she owed my husband and me dinner. I think we paid for her dinner over a year ago on our way to a meeting...so long ago.  I had forgotten, but she remembered.  She then went on to say that she has dropped out of the gardening group but is volunteering one day a week at the local library.  She said that she had just turned 95 and decided she needed to slow down.

For some insight, this woman is a volunteer master.  There is nowhere in the county that she has not donated her precious time.  She has won awards from the county for her time donated.  BUT when she explained that she had just turned 95, I was a bit surprised.  It seemed just a few years ago she was in her 80s when we used to work booths, etc. together. She never seemed that old to me.  Wow.  Time seems to have flown while I was sheltering and nervously eating chocolate.

She has been a widow for almost two decades.  Her children are all doctors and live in the city while another lives somewhere in Germany!  This gene pool should be duplicated!

I am always envious of those who fit in everywhere and are not intimidated by some new task or the pace of activity, and she is a shining example.

I am Timid Theresa and always move in slowly with trepidation.  I am sure I will disappoint or I will not like the endeavor.

Do you have friends that are 'stars'?  Are you a 'star'?  (Having read Bloggers I follow for years, I find lots of shining stars.)

I Will Send You Next Door

The world has been topsy turvy with such odd weather.  We got just a taste of that.  I will send you to my other blog for a trip in the icy woods, since I have nothing to write here.  (Do you see the finch?)

A Litany of Activities and the Answer to Your Question on the Prior Post

The last time I saw my 13-year-old ( or is she still 12?) granddaughter was just before Christmas.  She looked at me sideways and asked "What do you do all day, Neena (my pet name)?"   The image of what she thought about an old lady who has no job, lives remotely in the country, and does not look at her cell phone every ten minutes flashed before me.  I am sure she thought I sat all day and stared out at the window.

Actually, I do a lot of that staring out the window in feeding and counting the birds that come to my feeders.

I also read quite a bit.  Reading three books right now:  Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Sanjay Gupta; The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz  by Erik Larson; and Best American Short Stories 2020 (The Best American Series ®) edited by

Curtis Sittenfeld.  I am going through a bit of an addiction to Winston Churchill because I am also taking the Great Course of him on my computer.  You study history long enough and you realize that pure damn luck has a lot to do with where you are at any time and that smart leaders are very complicated.

I watch a lot of British TV in the evenings and science fiction/space shows.  Hubby and I are binge-watching the various series of Star Trek each night.

I do sit and look at my phone every 10 minutes or so to see if any of the three places where I have registered for the COVID shot have contacted me to face the dragon on their website and pick a time.  Nothing...except 'we have no vaccines at this time' or 'working on our site and we will be available in the near future.'

I try to do my exercises 3 to 4 times weekly, but my continued chronic cough has interrupted my sleep for over a year and thus my energies are not as high as I would like.  My allergist is treating me with various versions of tranquilizers which seem to be making me edgier rather than calmer and do not seem to impact this cough which emerges every hour to an hour and a half during the day and two or three times at night.  My daughter is angry that I am not more pro-active in seeking a solution, but my insurance company is not as liberal as hers and my medical network is much smaller.

My day is also busy with cooking for someone with allergies and ordering food mostly remotely which takes up a LOT of time and creativity.

As my blog title says:  I am taking it ONE DAY AT A TIME.

And, to answer your question, the series of photos in the prior post came about because a pair of Canada geese have been sitting on the osprey nest.  They did successfully raise a small flock a few years ago at this nest and drove away the osprey couple for whom we built the nest.  Osprey arrive to mate about 2 weeks later than our local geese do and while they have talons and a sharp beak they are no match for the heavy geese with their long strong necks.  This year we want the nest available for our Osprey as their nesting sites are more selective.  The metal deterrent is something we used last year and then took it down when we saw Osprey in the area.  Our young friend who stands over six feet did the setup and we will now wait for the Osprey season.

Having Friends in High Places

Tabor's world continues to turn and it seems to be moving fast enough to stay ahead of the Virus.  Hubby has gotten his first shot and that is a relief to me.  My daughter and her family all had the virus for a long weekend in January.  They got tested and were found positive.  They did not suffer terribly.  Mostly fatigue and aches.  Now I just worry about my son and his wife.  Both have some health issues, so I keep praying for more vaccines.  I have not yet been scheduled for any shots, although I have called and registered everywhere in the area; so I am hanging out mostly indoors.

I have a "brief" photo montage below that cautions you about helping friends.  Let me know if you have figured it out and I will explain in the next post.

Now off to read your posts.