On Being Crabby

I am not usually like this — being a crabby old fart. Generally speaking I roll through life fairly happily, shrugging off its less than thrilling trials as best I can. However, I frankly admit that a number of things are crabbing me out just now.

1. We've just begun September, and it's still technically summer, but I am brought low by a cold. It's too early for this sort of nonsense. And that is turning me into Mr Cranky Pants.
2. Also: as colds go, it's a bad one. Although colds, by definition, always make one sick, this one is giving me a real pummeling. When watching TV, I have to go a rest for about fifteen minutes every hour or so. Having to rest from watching TV is pretty pathetic, don't you think? Would this not make you a little bit cranky too?
3. Furthermore: it really peeves me that I can't easily do the natural thing to fight a cold: i.e. I can't just go to sleep. That's what normal people do to help them recover. Me? I sleep even less than my usually pathetic amount and that really makes me crabby.
   
4. With that in mind, I am am reduced to dragging myself about the house while the garden stands neglected on what should be perfect weather for those chores that I really want to get to while the getting is good because this fine weather won't last too much longer. Sigh and crab.
   
5. Saturday, despite having very little energy, I decided that I could handle coffee out followed by a few quick tours of Doors Open Day in a nearby town. I trudged wearily to the first stop, only to find that their doors would open an hour later than everybody else's doors. Why they couldn't have noted the time adjustment on the official brochure rather than post a sign after a wearying trudge is beyond me. Grrr and crab.
   
6. We drove to the next point of interest, a former woolen mill that is now, at least partly, a textile museum. The sign out front informed us that we were free to enjoy touring the exterior of the building. Huh? Well thanks, but couldn't I do that any ole time? I mean, do you usually wrap the building in a shroud, so that people can't see the exterior? If we had wanted to go inside, we would have had to pay the usual admittance fee. I'm really crabby about such duplicity. If you don't want to freely open your doors, then don't advertise your site as one of the open doors.
7. Since the morning had gone so badly, I thought it would be nice to drive to the chip truck around the corner for a little treat. It was gone, probably to a special event, or perhaps it is already closing down as cooler weather approaches. Either way I was crabby. I could have gone to another chip truck as there are a number of them in this town, but I was too tired and crabby to go on a merry chase.
   
8. Due to this dadblasted cold, I will not be attending the jam tonight. I have hardly been there for a year; everytime that I have targetted a return date, something has happened — be it ear infection, hearing aid problems or whatnot. Yes, this too is upping my crabbiness index.
   
9. I'm also crabby about how tennis, specifically right now the US Open, is broadcast on TV. We like to watch Wimbledon at the beginning of summer and the US Open at the end, with the Canadian Open in between. But why do announcers insist on mumbling year after year? We are forced to turn the sound way up to try to discern their mumbles, and then the commercials fairly blast us through the walls. It's very crab-making.
   
10. And for goodness sakes, in this high tech era, can they not figure out a way to decrease the amount crowd noise that the mics pick up and transmit to us while they're commenting after an exciting rally? I can seldom make out what they're saying over the background noise. While I understand that my hearing isn't the best, I must report that when I turn to Rabbit-Ears Cuppa for an interpretation, she is generally shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders in perplexity. CBS pours millions of dollars into covering the event and televising it for us. They pay their announcers a small fortune but fail to gauge their sound in such a way as to allow us to hear the commentators. That's stupid, and stupidity makes me crabby.
11. While I'm at it, I want to ask what purpose those pre-match interviews serve. The players clearly don't want to be there and only serve up innocuous statements. Frankly, I cringe when these interviews are shown. I told you that I was crabby.
    
12. Finally, it really frosts me that we can't watch tennis on the American channel (CBS) but get a feed-over from the Canadian channel that buys the rights to the feed. Even when I choose CBS, I get TSN. On Saturday evening after Clisters won her match, there was still twenty minutes to spare in the time slot. I would have loved to have seen a wrap-up of the day: the thoughts and analyses of various commentators. But no: our Canadian relay (TSN) immediately switched over to regular programming, and I found myself suddenly watching a ridiculous car show about an new economy Mazda vehicle. We have this problem year after year. One year, we missed the end of the tennis finals because it went longer than the time allotted, and we were switched over to some telethon or other. It really makes me crabby to endure this year after year.
13. On top of all that, I have had to come back to this post about three times to add points that I forgot about whilst typing. It really makes me crabby to do that.
    

I'm sure I could go on if I really put my mind to it, but this cold is sapping my energy, and I must go rest again. Which makes me crabby.

More On Giving and Happiness

Since I just mentioned it as a key to personal happiness, it was serendipitous to come across this newspaper article about giving in the Ottawa Citizen. Apparently both Canadians and Americans do quite well. I've pasted a few excerpts below, but you can read the whole article at The Ottawa Citizen's website.

Canada ranks third in a global "generosity" survey, in which the key overall finding is that being happy is a greater impulse for people to give their time and money to charity than being rich.

Canadians are on par with the Irish for giving, and surpassed only by the Australians and New Zealanders, according to the survey — the largest ever to study global charitable behaviour.

... it is important to recognize both giving of time as well as money since a simple measure of financial donations would, on the whole, make the wealthiest nations appear most charitable ...

On a regional basis, North Americans — defined by the study as Canadians and Americans collectively — are the most willing in the world to help strangers.

Of Grampas, Wheelbarrows and Faulty Memories

While at the cottage just the other week, I chanced to put Nikki Dee in the wheelbarrow and Cuppa chanced to be there with the camera. ↓↓ This photo brought back memories, at least some of which have turned out to be faulty.



Cuppa remembers a photo of her dad pushing Thesha in a wheelbarrow. She might be right, but our box of old slides is so stupidly disorganized that I haven't yet been able to uncover such a gem. I will continue to look and will post if I come across it.

However, be it real or not, her recollection caused me to remember an old photo of my grampa pushing me in a wheelbarrow — or so I thought. But I've been through all of the albums, and I regret to inform the world that (GASP!) my memory is faulty. There is no photo of him pushing me in a wheelbarrow. However, I did find one ↓↓ of me in his wheelbarrow about sixty years ago. I wish he were in it, but alas ...



I so wish I could sit down and have a long talk with my grampas now. There's so much I would like to know: about their childhood, their families, their crossings to Canada, their stories about work, etc. One reason that I blog now is to leave a bit of record behind should my own scions ever wish to know more about the nuts in their family tree: nuts with faulty memories as it turns out.

Odd Milestone

In an effort to win the Inane Trivia Award, I am now abusing my keyboard to inform you of the significant milestone that I have reached. To wit: I have been drinking coffee for a whole decade now.

I don't mean that I have been drinking it nonstop for ten years, barely coming up for breath, although that would really be worth posting. Rather it has been a decade since I decided that I was old enough to consume such an adult beverage.

We had been out west, and I sometimes felt a bit out of it when people in my company were socially sipping their java whilst I twiddled my thumbs. So in September of 2000, I decided to overcome my distaste of the brew and do what decent folk everywhere were doing. Up until then, I had only bothered to taste it a few times, and one sip had been sufficient. I didn't even like the smell of it. Nevertheless, I purposed to grow up.

I began by adding lots of cream and sugar: triple-triples in Tim Hortons parlance. Then it became double-doubles before I settled in at double cream. And that's the way I continue to have it although I suppose that I slide toward triple cream some of the time.

Most days, I have one mug in the morning, occasionally one and a half but seldom two, and that's usually it for the day. Only infrequently I will drop into Tims for an additional jolt.

Come to think of it, I haven't been indulging in that other adult beverage — beer — for so very much longer. What can I say? I guess some of us take longer to grow up.

Aren't you happy that you stopped by for such earth-shaking report? Carry on.

Steps to Happiness

From another blog, I was directed to this video of a TED presentation by Nic Marks about what it takes or will take to create a happy planet. For much of this almost 17 minute video, the material deals with a global view based on statistics etc, but around the 13 minute mark, he begins to highlight five specific actions that we can engage in daily on a personal level. What follows below is what I understood the speaker to say, not necessarily his actual words.

1. Take time to CONNECT with others. Relationships are the cornerstone of your life.
2. The fastest and surest way to overcome a bad mood etc is to BE ACTIVE: go for a walk; put on some music and dance etc.
3. TAKE NOTICE of life. Be aware of the changing seasons, of what people are saying, of your own inner thoughts and feelings.
4. It has been found that older people who KEEP LEARNING are generally healthier than those who don't. One doesn't have to take formal courses, but it is beneficial to remain curious.
5. There seems to be a part of our brains that is hardwired to feel good when we GIVE of ourselves.

Of Smoke and Fire

Late on Saturday night, I was totally engrossed in The Girl Who Played With Fire (the book, I mean, not an actual female pyromaniac) when I thought I heard a beep. It came to me that I might have actually heard a few beeps deep in the background in the past few minutes, and I had been too absorbed to consciously notice. Naw: couldn't be. I went back to my reading but with a little more awareness. Sure enough, in a moment or two: beep.

I knew what it was — the smoke detector. It went wonky one night about six months ago when we had visitors staying over, so I knew. Why these things must happen at night and particularly when one has visitors, I know not. I mean to say, in five years in this place, that had been a first. Now, we were having a second incident. At least it was just the two of us this time.

However, from that experience I now knew what to do: blow some compressed air into the mechanism, and it would magically cease to beep. Not. For once I sat down smugly and comfortably to resume my reading, I head it: beep.

Okay AC, remove the cover and disconnect the infernal thing. Unfortunately the plug didn't want to budge, so, I had to content myself with blowing more air. Surely it would work this time because with the cover part hanging down, I could access it much more thoroughly.

Wrong again. Minutes later, it beeped its beeping beep once again.

This time, the sleeping Cuppa was also roused sufficiently enough to inquire what the heck was going on. She also decided to try to disconnect the thing and it came apart easy peasy, which confirms my mechanical ineptitude for the about the gazillionth time.

She: back to bed.

Me: back to reading.

The detector in the ceiling: back to beeping.

But the cover was now off, so how in the world could a disconnected smoke detector keep detecting and beeping, I wondered. Maybe there's a backup battery inside it, said she.

After another beep or two, I wondered whether it might not be the upstairs smoke detector at all. Maybe it was the one the one directly below the stairs on the first floor. I went down and listened, but the beeping didn't seem to be coming from there. Cuppa had stayed upstairs directly below the part still in the ceiling, and she declared that it wasn't the wall part that was beeping but the disconnected part that was now lying on a table. Curiouser and curiouser.

Regardless, she of the better ears decided it would be prudent to go downstairs to listen for herself while I stayed up, but she could only confirm that it wasn't the downstairs smoke detector. I confess to being quite baffled: wondering how in tarnation a taken-apart smoke detector could possibly be working be it the ceiling part or the disconnected part.

Idea: maybe it was neither smoke detector but the carbon monoxide detector in the bedroom. So, I went in to have myself a listen. Well, if a watched pot doesn't boil neither does a watched detector detect. Eventually, as she tired of waiting for the next beep, Cuppa also joined me to contemplate the carbon monoxide monitor. After more frustrated waiting, she picked the thing up, carried it to the light where she was able eventually discern a tiny, dimly lit message: Change the Battery.

So, I hadn't known after all what had been causing the dad-blasted beeping; I had merely assumed that what had occurred once before in the middle of the night was occurring once again. But the mystery had been solved after much drowsy-headed puzzlement; Cuppa headed back to sweet repose and I back to my reading. I am pleased to report that I finished the novel around midnight. Once again, I recommend Steig Larsson to you.

Upon reflection, it's indeed an ill wind that blows no good. In this case, dear reader is able to come to Raindrops without having to look at any sort of photo whatsoever. Should that not be cause for rejoicing throughout blogland? And don't you find it a tiny bit ironic that all this detector foofaraw occurred while I was reading a book entitled, The Girl Who Played With Fire? Thankfully, on this Saturday night at least, where there was fire there was not smoke.

Belated Birthday Pics

As it happened, my 63rd birthday unfolded in three stages beginning with some cake, ice cream and gifts (remember the obsolete iPod?) with the A Team after we got home from the cottage and before they flew back to Vancouver. After a hectic week at the cottage followed a long drive home to a house in the mess of a major renovation, we neglected to take pictures. That shows how tired Cuppa was because she hardly ever forgets to record these events.

My actual birthday was a usual day of childcare, but the event was still remembered — with pictures this time. The morning began with candles — on my birthday buns as it were.



The lighting and blowing of the candles was repeated five times accompanied by five very slow rounds of Happy Birthday. Nikki Dee loves to lead the singing and to be the main candle-blower-outer.



She is also happy to be the main gift-opener and doesn't mind at all that the gifts are for someone else.



Last year, I took her and Cuppa to McDonalds for my birthday. This year Zach was sleeping, so we continued to make it a tradition without Cuppa who stayed with him while Nikki Dee and I went out. Maybe someday, Nikki Dee will take me out, or maybe this won't really become a tradition; time will tell. I took more than a half dozen pictures of her, but this is the only time I managed to get her to look at the camera: little impy-doodle that she is.



It was back home for cake, which she helped Amma to decorate ...



... along with much finger-sticking and licking just to make sure it was acceptable.



Yum. It passed the test.



Come Saturday, Thesha took us out to breakfast while Theboy stayed home to continue with the renovations.



And that's about it for another year.