I got to mind the 3 grandkids from Friday afternoon to about 9:30 last night, capping a week that included:
\n– 2 user group meetings, one of them mine;
\n– the latest and hopefully last in a series of car repairs;
\n– a visit (with the kids) to my most understanding Dennisport customer for a quick IT consult;
\n– a presentation on Technology for Non-Profits at two sessions of the Cape Corps Volunteer Expo;
\n– an agonizing 5 hour round trip to Hyannis via the b-Bus and
\n– an escape from the dour, patriarchal cynicism of Cape Cod via a 2-day client onsite in Boston.<\/p>
\nThe weather was, as they say, frightful last night, a thunder and lightning storm so violent that I unplugged my computers, the cable modem and the router. It’s raining again this morning, what a drag.
\nThe week left a slew of impressions, from the illuminating ride on the b-Bus (apparently used mostly to transport citizens to publicly-supported worksites for the mentally and socially challenged) to joy at being in a real city again.
\nOh, and I got a letter published in the Cape Cod Times<\/u>, and the Mashpee Enterprise<\/u> printed a photo of Peter and James, aka Jon.
\nIt was great fun to spend time with the kids, and they were well-behaved and good company, spending time outside as weather permitted, teaching me how to play their NeoPets board game, and eating what was served to them without complaint.
\nI dropped off a huge box of donated paper when I picked James up at preschool, packaged and mailed a late birthday gift to my friend Fran, brought the kids to the playground so they could meet up with a young friend whose little brother had a ball game in the same park, and delivered Emme to her last rehearsal for First Holy Communion, scheduled for this afternoon.
\nAmong the stacks of paper that teeter-totter on my desk, I have, incredibly, managed to find the gift certificate for Emme’s congratulatory savings bond.
\nThis morning, Peter and I are doing a dump run, and I’m going to try to catch up on my Fireworks online class, which I’ve neglected horribly. I have banking business to attend to and some database coding to review.
\nSome people my age lead the boring lives of the early retired, and I feel sorry for them, in a way.
\nWithout the self-imposed pressure of taking on these labors of intellectual stimulation and personal relationships, I would turn into yet another reclusive crank, the kind who turns routine housework and complaints about minor health problems into a full-time job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got to mind the 3 grandkids from Friday afternoon to about 9:30 last night, capping a week that included: – 2 user group meetings, one of them mine; – the latest and hopefully last in a series of car … Continue reading