Independence

Today marks the 61st anniversary of independence for Trinidad & Tobago.  Congratulations to my home country on continuing to uphold the values of “every creed and race find an equal place” and embracing diversity in many forms.  I’ve spoken before of the lessons I learnt growing up there, and the acceptance of difference, so I won’t rhapsodize about that now.  My boys were up and planning things when we spoke this morning; Jerry seemed to be on high alert, with his little ears perked up.  Then he heard my voice and snuggled up to Don, patted him on his tummy, stretched out his paw and tried to knock the phone from his hand!  It was hard to talk, since Jerry would insist on inserting himself between Don and the phone, but would turn his back on me while we talked!  Silly little boy.  I’m still concerned about what Don is eating, although he says that he’s finished all the sweets and is now into protein and carbohydrates so it should be less of a worry… 

So I got about 3 hours sleep last night before I went back to my waking-every-hour routine.  The down side is that when it’s time to get up, I’m half dead to the world.  I didn’t have too many things going on, so I could catch up on my rest, but I’d really like it if I could sleep at the designated times and be alert when I need to be.  Frankly, though, it’s a minor thing in the overall scheme.  Unlike my house, my sister’s fridge has lots of neatly-packed leftovers, some of which would cause my dietitian to faint in horror, as they’ve lived there for up to a week.  She’s of the view that leftovers should be binned after 2 days, which makes everyone I know laugh their heads off.  How would I eat if everything got trashed so fast?  I’d need my old eat-an-adult-portion-followed-by-dessert appetite back!  I’ve been trying my best to eat what she serves, but my sister’s had to finish all of my meals along with those of the small people.

We explained to the little ones that it’s Trinidad’s birthday, to which they responded by singing “Happy birthday to Trinidad” and looking for the cake!  It was delightful and hilarious.  We took a short trip to the farmer’s market in downtown Grimsby this evening.  Beautiful weather for being outdoors, with just the slightest need for a scarf as I only brought summer clothes which don’t go well with under 20C temperatures.  Of course, if I’d packed sweaters and long sleeved clothes, it would be above 30!!  Anyway, we bought some fresh fruit, wandered around and looked at the displays of meat, flowers, wine, jams and so on.  We were there so late that all the food stalls (which are really forbidden to my nephew) were mostly sold out.  But the blackberries are perfectly ripe tart and they were practically fighting me for them!  All of us now have purple-stained fingers and lips from blackberries.  Yum!

I had a chance to chat with my elder niece this afternoon.  She starts university on Monday with her first class at 9am.  She said that she was very excited until she started seeing the lists of assignments and reading due for all of her classes.  I suggested to her to enter the assignments into her calendar 2 days before their actual due date, so she has time to review before submitting.  We discussed the relative merits of handwriting notes versus taking them on her computer; I pointed out that it was really up to her and what suited her better.  When I was at university, there was no option for using a laptop / tablet for note taking (they didn’t exist yet) so I had several notebooks in which I hand wrote all of my notes.  I also said that I was never one of those very organized types who colour coded and cross referenced my notes, and I’d sometimes have duplicates of key points because they weren’t quickly findable.  She’s  not certain, so will try each method to see which suits her better.  She’s also been advised that she’ll have full funding for her tuition, so at most will need to pay for textbooks (most of which should be available online.)

OK, I’m burnt out even though the small people are revved up and full of energy.  We still don’t understand the recharging process; they ran around for almost an hour, shrieking with fun, got home, ran some more, danced… I’d have expected some tiredness.  Nope.  I’m drooping, but will be fine, and the other adults are flagging, but not the little ones.  They are home tomorrow as daycare will be closed, so we’ll see how that works.  I’d better get some sleep, so good night!