Scattered pictures

Queen’s Park Savannah, Trinidad.  Someone was sharing this photo of dawn there, which does a great job of making me a little homesick!  It’s a mild day, with sporadic rain, and I’m regaining some energy.  Jerry is a little hyperactive and has been running around, throwing his toy and chasing me every time I get up.  That started when I woke up this morning, and he’s been either curled up on me or else sitting by my feet ever since.  He’s right now rearranging his blanket (and trying to steal my lap throw to add to his collection) and letting me know that he’s a neglected little puppy who nobody loves (but who is almost constantly petted.)  Don is recovering from a minor issue, which left him in some pain and unable to sit comfortably.  I was teasing him because he said that he couldn’t find something in the bathroom cabinet, but when I looked it was right there.  Granted, it was behind another item, but it was on the same shelf in the same location I’d said… I’m not going to comment further on his ability to find things that aren’t hidden!!

We’re both realizing that mobility is becoming more of a challenge.  For me, climbing stairs is painful and difficult, but if I must, I can — at my sister’s, for instance, I’d just take everything I needed with me downstairs in the morning, and I stayed on the ground floor until I went up to bed, carrying my little bag.  I’d plan my day so that I didn’t have to go upstairs during the day.  In the condo, everything is on a single level, with no stairs anywhere, except to go out on the balcony — there’s one step that you have to go over.  Don is finding is harder to walk over that step now; I do it in 2 parts, but even that is a challenge.  This is really frustrating, I admit.  There are a number of adjustments that we’ve made (and are making) to maintain our ability to live here — the tub was converted to a shower, and a chair has been added; there’s a grab bar at the side of the bed to help me get out; I’ve added blocks to raise the height of my chair so it’s easier for me, and I rely very heavily on a good friend to help with grocery shopping and some errands.  I feel like I’ve aged into my 90s and skipped over 4 decades of my life, which is super annoying!  If I compare my current activity level against my parents and aunts in their 70s, I am less physically capable than they were.  May I swear and use non-parliamentary language about this?  Please?

My phone sends me photo memories daily (everyone’s does, I know!) Often the memories don’t correspond to the actual date, so I’m not sure what the algorithm uses for a prompt.  This weekend, I was reminded that 6 years ago I’d just returned from Cuba, and the following year I was in Virginia with some of my cousins.  (I’m forever grateful that my Cuba companions couldn’t turn on my camera quickly enough to capture a particular memory, but we can still smile about it.)  I had a lovely, nostalgic day reminiscing about those trips, especially the time with family.  As I scrolled through my memories of Charlottesville, it jumped to our weekend in Boston, which was another fun time.  That was the first time I’d met my cousin’s daughter — dreadful, isn’t it, how easy it is to fall out of touch with family?  But equally wonderful that reconnecting is super easy too!  We’d met again after a long separation and just kept connected after that.  Same with some other cousins, so I’m really thankful for the opportunity to know them better as adults. It dawned on me that it’s really easy to lose several hours wandering back on memory lane looking at old photos; I’d often done that with my mother and Auntie Ming; almost every year, we’d go through some of the old family albums, looking at the past.  There are the family albums — one belonging to my great-grandmother that’s a century old; photos from my grandmother, the many family photos from my mother and her sisters, and then my albums with my friends.  It’s a pity in many ways, that we didn’t have the almost infinite capacity for photos that we do now.  I remember how expensive it was to buy, develop and print photos (I actually still have many negatives for photos) and the challenge of limiting pictures to the 12-, 24- or (splurge time!) 36-film rolls.  Going on holiday meant either buying extra films and hoping that they’d survive airport x-ray machines, because developing film in different countries could be problematic and would take up more space than the film canisters.  Or else we’d get a few disposable cameras (12-shots) and do the same.  I still remember my first camera — a tiny Instamatic canister point-and-shoot — that used the little cartridges and not a roll of film.  I’d save up to buy film, and to develop, and hope desperately that my pictures “took” and weren’t over- or under-exposed, that I didn’t have my finger over the lens, and so on — none of which I’d know until weeks later.  My first digital camera was a 3Mp point-and-shoot, and then I upgraded to an SLR with memory card (8Mp) and I thought that they were awesome.  In comparison to my phone, they’re quite primitive.  I still have a digital camera (10Mp) which I use from time to time, but I’ve lost the ability to transfer images from memory card because, well, technology.  

I won’t spend too much time mourning the past; I wish that I had more family pictures, but we do have a fair amount, all things considered.  I’m giving some serious consideration to trying to scan the albums into digital format, but that’s a serious time investment.  Auntie Ming, for instance, has over 70 (numbered) albums, each of which has at least 100 photos, and my mother has a comparable amount with few overlaps, as she said there was no point having multiple copies.  Plus there are some slides, and all that sort of stuff.  If anyone has an easy method for digitizing them, I’d love to hear it.  The idea of individually scanning each page, then cropping out the photos so that a page of 10 photos becomes 10 separate shots, is enough to make me lie down and put a cold compress over my eyes!  (T, I’m looking at you for this one!!)  

Meanwhile, my tiny overlord is demanding my attention, so I’m off to pet a tummy and scratch behind his ears.  Good night!