Republic Day

Come come away, hail to the day, this is our land’s great morning; birds in the trees waft in the breeze, songs of our nation’s dawning. 🎶  Happy 47th Republic Day to Trinidad & Tobago.  I remember learning this (Our Nation’s Dawning), and God Bless Our Nation for the first one way back in primary school.  Any other Trinis remember these?  I’ve been playing them this afternoon and getting all patriotic and nostalgic at the same time.  Memories can be lovely.  Jerry is in a ball on Don’s feet, sulking because I’m typing and he can’t get back on my lap (he’s been here all afternoon).  Don is still not feeling well and now produces sound effects of groans when he walks.  I’d really like it if he could recover, it’s been almost 3 weeks now that he’s been out of sorts for different reasons!

I’m waiting impatiently for my support worker to come so I can head out to the barbecue to which I was invited.  I’m already over 2 hours late, and I’m wondering how late is acceptable… part of that is, of course, my energy level.  I’m rather irritated that she’s so late, but… 😮‍💨  The pleasant news continues in that my sleep has improved and I ate an almost normal-sized meal today!  (I was also looking forward to BBQ and birthday cake! 😡)  

Gotta love technology.  It’s so great to be able to chat — and video chat — with people all around the world.  So much easier to keep in contact with others, and faster.  I still love letters, and I still write them and cards for events like Christmas or birthdays or Easter even though I often get eye rolls and exasperated sighs when I say things like, “Oops, I have to mail some stuff!”  I’m asked why I do that, and what’s the point, when email / text / messenger is so much faster.  To me it’s a question of personalization and a demonstration that I think that the recipient is  worth the time it takes to do this.  Yes, I can send a group message (or update the blog 😆) and share photos instantly, but there’s something cozy about getting a letter and reading it while sipping a cup of tea.  It would be wine, but my meds… then I take a few minutes to write a short reply, pop it into the post, and in a few days someone’s working on deciphering my penmanship.  (It’s not too bad, although not as elegant as I’d like it to be.  I keep practicing my copperplate, but when I start writing it degenerates unless I make an extra effort to write slowly.)  Apparently, several of my hobbies are gaining in popularity and are being recommended to people as helpful ways to practice mindfulness or creativity or something like that.  It brings me a lot of joy to read random articles about the value of handcrafting.  I’ve blathered on at length about how much I enjoy crochet, because it can be so relaxing.  (Although people confuse it with knitting.)  I continue to work on learning new techniques (this week it’s mosaic and overlay) and I’ve got plans to try a few more complex ones.  I have to exercise some restraint, as I have rather a lot of wool, but every time I go to start a new project, I need to get more wool.  It’s like my reading list… I probably need a millennium to get through all the books I want to read, and that doesn’t count new ones that I’ll have to get over time or ones that others recommend.  Slight topic change here, it’s almost that time for grant reviews, and this time there’s a group where we introduce ourselves and talk about hobbies, and I found that at least 3 other people are into crochet (pattern exchanges upcoming!!) and at least 5 are into fiction so we’re trading book suggestions.  Ebooks reduce the physical presence of the piles to read, but I’ve currently got over 3GB of books on my iPad, not counting the tottering “to read” piles on my night stand or on the end table by my chair or the shelved ones that just look accusingly at me for having tidied them away before I started them.

OK, the dog is attacking me and trying to type so I think I need to stop what I’m doing and go pay attention to him.  I also just got a call that my support worker will be here in 10 minutes (3 hours late!!) so there’s also that.  (This is not my regular person)  That all being said, I’ll leave you and say Good night.