Did You Like College?

I keep forgetting about what is really going on in the world. Our lives are spent mostly close to home, although we will be taking our first airplane flight in a long time at the end of this coming February. 

This past weekend we spent a 5-hour drive north to Rochester Institute of Technology. I am not enrolling in graduate school, but that is not because I would not want to.  As much as I was intimidated by college, coming from a poor family in a small farming community, I still loved all the information that was revealed in my struggle to get my Bachelor's in education at the state college.

Grandson #1 will be applying to colleges next year.  He comes from a wealthy family (the ones who will be taxed in Biden's new bill) and he has a tutor already to help him with SATs!  I love this child and want him to have every opportunity, but I also am sad for those poorer children with talent and passion who do not have access to such tools. He is looking into IT work on gaming.  I keep trying to pressure him to look at gaming that would help in the health care industry or the education industry rather than the kind that just makes money.  I try.

It was a five-hour drive, and overnight in a hotel, and due to COVID we were not able to take the student tour.  Only one parent in the labs, library, classes, etc.  The daughter sent us videos of their tours while we toured outside the campus.  It was cold and a bit rainy and even sleeting by mid-day.

The campus has some nice wooded trails.  It is fairly new...maybe 15-20 years old.  I found joy in being around the few young people on campus.  It was a Saturday, so most were hunkered down, but we saw a few joggers and walkers.

We ate lunch in downtown Rochester at some 'favorite" hot dog place that was wooden tables, metal chairs, and cheap food.  It was meh...but I am not a hotdog fan.

The trip was a stretch, but I am glad we went along.  My days to enjoy stuff like this are numbered.  

We are packing today to head up to our schedule of supervising the Grands while they are in school and then turning them over Wednesday to the other set of Grandparents who will drive them up North for Thanksgiving.  My daughter printed out three pages of the schedule...who has to be where...what there is to eat...when the dog is being picked up by the sitter...etc.

I am revving my engines.

More on the Saga of TG

I realize that most of you do not need to read about family dramas over the holidays. Who wants to hear about families juggling holidays? I told my children, each after they were married, that they did not have to feel obligated to come to my house over major holidays. They could celebrate as they wished and where they wished as long as they saw us sometime during those months.

This post is to clarify these events based on what has followed, and see that I have had good times as well as stressful ones.

My daughter said after her second child (of eventually three) was born that she wanted to celebrate Christmas at her house so that she could start her own traditions.  I think she has done this most Christmases and we drive up there for the day (or sometimes the night before) to enjoy the day with them.  Sometimes the other set of parents joins us.

She as well as my son and his wife usually try to alternate TG between us and their respective in-laws.  Below is our Hawaii Thanksgiving a few years ago, which was certainly special.

Unfortunately, as the years have passed, we have been lax in trying to find who was doing what and slower in inviting them down here.  My daughter, as I have written before, leads an EXTREMELY busy life with her job and three children and I have reduced my efforts to fit into such a hectic schedule.

ANYWAY, my Son-in Law's mother, Lili (not her name), called me on Sunday to talk about our roles in this crazy scenario.  It was too late for me to answer as my entire weekend had been filled with a painter working on two bathrooms and the ceiling to the master bedroom.  Stuff was moved everywhere and while he did an excellent job of clean-up and moving furniture back in place, I still had lots of things to move into the bathrooms and from the hallway.  So I called her back the next morning.

First, let me say that Lili is a delightful person.  She is the kind of person that would literally give her purse to you if you were in need.  She is generous to her two sons but admitted that both of them drop the ball on trying to get schedule details worked out with their parents.  An additional challenge for her is that her husband has a type of disease that is related to Parkinson's and while he can still drive she knows that the days are getting fewer for driving in traffic.  So she asked her son if perhaps they could just drive down the day before TG, spend the end of the week (including TG) watching the Grands, and then drive up the Sunday for the long trip back to their house.  

Her son said that the children were really looking forward to spending  TG with their cousins!  So, she sighed, then came up with a new plan. (I will not go into the details of sacrifices she making for this 'new' plan.)  She will meet us at the Grand's house the day before TG (we will not have to drive up and exchange them).  Then they will rest that night and drive back home on Thanksgiving day!  Which should be less traffic(?) plus give them time to rest up from the almost 4-hour drive the day before.  They would make it to her other son's house late in the afternoon on TG. We would leave that morning before TG to head to our house.

I was amenable to whatever worked for her.  I would have said let us do TG at the kids' house, but she had said that her son wanted the kids to be together with their cousins up North.  (Remember, he and my daughter will be on the other side of the world that week.)

It takes the pressure off of us somewhat.  We return home earlier the day before TG.  Now I just have to get my daughter-in-law and son to let me know if they have decided how they want to do TG...with us and her parents at her house...or with us and her parents at our house...or maybe her parents do not want to drive the five-hour drive from their house at all!!  They live way "up north" as well.

Whatever happens, I am for ordering a complete TG dinner from one of the stores!!  The food is good and there are always leftovers and it allows any foodie to bring their favorite dish.  Yes, it costs a little more.  I just have to know for how many...2 or 4 or 6??

Tomorrow I am getting my old noisy fridge replaced and so everything gets emptied early tomorrow morning to be ready for delivery.  Then, this weekend I am off to Rochester University to attend a college preview with my oldest grandson and his mother.  They have a good Technical college that has him interested.  We will leave Friday and be back late Sunday.  I guess I just need to cram more stuff into my life.  

Let Me Know What You Think

I have been organizing for the holidays..or trying to. Way back in May of this year...YES,May(!) my son-in-law asked me if I could help him over the Thanksgiving Holidays. He said he had received a rather large bonus and wanted to take his lovely wife (my daughter) away to the Maldives on a week-long vacation. He said his parents (who are somewhat elderly) would be taking care of the kids that week and could I offer to help over the TG holidays. 

Last week I contacted the parents for details and I guess I totally misunderstood, because I offered to cook or bring stuff up the city, etc. His Mother said that they were not having TG in the city but with her other son up towards NY state. The help they needed was to drive the grands two hours close to them on the day before TG and we would drop them off at some mid-point for a grand child exchange. My son-in-law then later explained that the help they needed was the days before the holidays. The weekend before TG and the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of TG week when the children would be in school and needed an adult at home.  They wanted us to spend the night up at their house those days.

So...this means we need to plan on driving upstate and dropping the kids off the late afternoon or early evening of the day before TG for the exchange. Then we can go back home that night, a 4 hour drive or go back to my daughter's house and spend the night before TG and drive home the morning of TG, a 1.5 hour drive. I am thinking I will not be  planning much of a TG dinner when I get home around 10:00 that morning.

Is is just me?

Cleaning, Nevermore

As I posted oh so long ago, I was finally going to hire a cleaning service.   I am in my 70s and I have never had a housecleaner, except for the two years we lived in Indonesia where you were expected to hire a cook, a laundress, and a night watchman (who actually slept at night and played with my 3-year-old son in the daytime).

Anyway, I was not used to having someone clean. My younger sister lives in a big house in Denver and has had a cleaning service forever. She always said they never clean as well as you want.  Since her house is huge she looks upon it as a necessary evil.  My daughter, who has three children, a demanding job, and a nice little house, has two cleaning ladies that also make the beds and do her laundry!  She also said that they tend to cut corners and not clean stuff as they should.  So I lowered my expectations.

When I started the service the first time they sent two women who washed window sills, washed doors, and did a major cleaning...sort of.  Then the service goes to one cleaner who comes weekly or bi-weekly or monthly.  They actually thought my house was so clean with the two of us that we only needed a monthly clean!  I went with the bi-weekly schedule anyway.  

After two months of bi-weekly cleaning from a sweet young woman, I realize that they miss stuff.  The recessed area below my kitchen cabinets in my kitchen is full of spider webs and dust and in one corner is a dead wasp.  I will finally point that out to her.  No one cares about the cleanliness of your house as much as you do!  I did a quick test in the third week.  She mops my floors each time and a day after she left I spilled a glass of water. I got my Swiffer mop to clean it and this is what I saw from a floor that had been mopped only the day before!  AND I had watched her mop.

Each time she comes I find some little cleaning area that needs more attention and it does not add to her four hours.  This service is expensive, but oddly I feel I am helping this young woman keep a job, perhaps influenced by a mini-series I watched on TV?

Netflix had/has a TV series "Maid" that I watched last month.  The TV series is based on a book by Stephanie Land and has Andie McDowell as a bi-polar mother and Andie MacDowell's real daughter plays her daughter who is a maid.  It is well done and really reflects the chaotic lives of some people.  It is about a young woman with a small child who flees her husband's alcoholic violence and goes to a shelter and also finds a job with a company called Value Maids where she cleans various clients' houses...which of course, adds to the story.

My 'maid' Meghan is a young divorcee with a 4-year-old. She has backup in babysitting from her mother, but I think the mother also has a job. (The child had strep throat and although she is now well and no longer infectious she has a chronic cough that will diminish in time, because of COVID they must keep her home from pre-school until the cough is gone!)

Meghan is a quiet and gentle girl who goes about her cleaning with iPods in her ears listening to music so we do not talk much.  Sometimes I hear her humming which reminds me of my Dad who used to whistle while he worked.  Of course, I want to direct her to podcasts that will educate her and enlighten her, but I will mind my own business.  I did give her some children's magazines that my children have left behind and she was pleased to take them.

I have mellowed on my cleaning expectations in my old age.  I used to be one of those that polished and shined every piece of furniture.

Anyway, the title of this post reminded me of the coming Halloween and I will link to a nice little favorite poem of mine which is perfect for this time of year.

Have a great Halloween!

A Lot Happens in My Little Town

I just posted on my other blog about the wonderful shoreline visits last weekend in our canoe. 

This weekend I have been out and about at meetings, something that is a bit of a stretch for me with my cough. I struggled but I continued! 

During this time, I met a world-famous orchid breeder who lives in my state but handles millions of orchids in a venue in Central America.  She lives on 40 acres and has her own laboratory.

I met an elder ecologist who talked about all the data he had taken on his little part of a larger river over the last decade or so which clearly showed water rising and temperature changes in a very dramatic and terrible way over each year. 

An old high school friend of my husband sailed down from Connecticut with his wife on his "yacht" and took us out to dinner. He is (was) a nationally well-known heart surgeon who developed a unique procedure to save lives and make himself a fortune.  He and his wife were very friendly and you would never know this about them.  This was a nice reunion for my hubby. 

Me? I felt somewhat small in all this prestigious company being just a retired librarian/educator with no national or international profile. But I did enjoy all the conversation! Now, please go ride a canoe with me on my other blog.