Doctor Grandma

I don’t want to say I’m frantic. That will be when school actually starts. But since getting back last night at 1am, reading briefly thru my mail (slow mail and e-mail), I’ve had 2-3 big things to take care of already, at my college. I plan to see my son and daughter-in-law the end of this week, who are visiting from Wisconsin, so it should be an interesting week. The good news is, I have a new loaner laptop, so I can actually WORK and read my own mail on my own computer again… (My former laptop got stolen in Indiana.)

From traveling the past 2 mos., I have many thoughts, but that will have to wait until later.

It was good to see my old Indiana friends again at summer school. Hard to describe the grounding it gives you to see people you’ve known & loved for 25 years. We are all loving our grandkids now…

I am excited & ready to greet students and be into all the activity of a Fall semester. I’m just not ready yet to present and teach….

in Indiana…

Not really home. This is my hometown & will always feel like home. But I am not home. Still in other people’s spaces.

Walked through the Mall here today, used my new Penny’s card. It is always fun to spend money when it doesn’t affect your immediate cash available… Dangerous freedom. There is one Mall in this town. I remember when it was built. My husband and I came home from college & noticed this huge new complex being built, which was to be called a “Mall”. What a concept. What came before Malls? Stores in the downtown area, something which does not really exist any longer. Non-franchise food. Drive-ins, and car hops, ice cream joints next to the park where teenagers hang out. It is always a walk into the past to come back here.

I await the arrival of my in-laws to their own home, which is where I currently am, having entered with a key. My son and his wife are here for his 10-yr high school reunion. Will see them soon as well, along with my daughter after she gets off work, and her 2 boys again. At this moment, all is quiet.

If I get time alone, I can once again gather my thoughts and feel somewhat together. When I am with other people 24/7, I begin to lose the capacity to feel whole. I am a true introvert.

My school laptop was stolen out from under my feet, at a public library yesterday, where many homeless hang out. Not to say a homeless person took it. Anyone could have taken it. But middle class people are not so desperate, or sometimes daring. It is a huge loss, and I do not yet know the ramifications of it. (Will they charge me for it? If so, how much? Will they not get me a new one right away? If so, I cannot function as a professor. I need to read my mail and to advise students for classes, need to be connected, plus a million other reasons.) At the same time, I would perfectly understand their being upset with losing it and I wonder how often this happens, or has happened, with students. (Do they get another laptop? Are they charged another laptop fee [which is outrageously toob much for the equipment they receive]?)

It is very difficult to just get my bearings each day, decide what to do. I have no home to come back to, to reorient myself. Staying at my daughter’s where my cell phone does not get reception, there is no Internet and no tv cable. Disconnected from the world.

This blog has become somewhat of a diary, which is probably not a good thing. Not all that interesting to anyone besides myself.

I have been home I think maybe 3 weeks since May 24th, and one of those was with a grandson there. Another week with 2 other grandsons there.

I will make it to New Albany somehow, for 1 day and at least locate and photograph my great-grandparents’ Agnews graves. Frustrating that I have not had the time to do any more family history research.

I am now back in Hoosierland for another week & 1/2. Still trying to get AL here for the wedding, trying to work out finances. I came to return Raven & Caspian to their home. Family niece’s wedding July 30th.

Will hopefully have time to work on family history while here, but it’s amazing how the time goes flying by, especially when J. has no internet. I am currently sitting in a Starbucks. I may go to a public library or Purdue to use public access to a printer. Thinking of leaving here now for an Arni’s Jr. w/blue cheese & garlic bread– pure and total delight! One of the finest enjoyments of life.

I hate having no home of my own, being without a place to hang my clothes, things like that. It’s always trying to be out and far from home. I’ve been this way all summer.

What strikes me about being back in Indiana:

• It is not hot. Not after South Carolina. People here have sweaters on and it’s summer. You dont wear sweaters in July in SC.
• The weather still sucks. It’s been raining off & on since I got here.
• Flat land and corn. I still love the flat land and corn fields. It feels like home every time.
• I still feel like I’m going to see my mom, and feel like I need to call her.

Friday night

 We leave tomorrow. It is about 10:30pm. Levin and Raven plan to swim tomorrow morning at 8am for one last time. Leah & Jean plan to take a morning walk at 5am. I plan to take a morning walk at about 7am. We’ll see how all this works out!

 We have had 4 cakes (one tonight for Raven), numerous games of chess, a few games of Monopoly and Yahtzee, I think one game of cards. I am too tired to give an account of the last 2 days. It has been a good family time, but very tense many times. I can’t wait to be home again. We found that we usually spent only a couple hours on the beach per day. Without Naylah it may have been more, but with sunburns and the intense HEAT this summer, about 2 hours was it. We went some days at 5pm and stayed for an hour & ½, when it was pleasantly cooler and less crowded. One day we spent 4 hours there when we took the cooler, sandwiches, and water.

 We learned Levin got a call from Barnes & Nobles & also a gas station for a job, today. Hopefully he will manage 2 part-time jobs for awhile and get some of his bills paid off. Learned today from Jamal that Shelly got 2 job offers as well. Some things are working out.

 I don’t remember what I’ve written & what I’ve not written. One thing I want for next year is either a bigger place, OR NO TV! I want no tv. It is constant, constant noise, and goes on into hours of the night after most of us are in bed. Yes, there are adults who want to stay up later, but when you think of last year, at the cabin, we did not have tv and we were all much more together and focused, and relaxed. We would hook up movies and watch them ALL together, then talk a little bit, and then all go to bed! We were much more united. This tv is just constant blaring of background noise, and no one mutes the commercials. It is almost too much to bear.

 I am going to bed. Caspian needs to crash out at about 10:00, 10:30 at the latest. He is realizing now that he is tired by that time. He goes into mine and Dad’s bed and lays down. We are all so tired.

 Went to a music concert tonight on the museum grounds. It was quite nice. People were dancing, even did the electric slide. It was a good Motown-type blues band. They had fun & got the crowd going. Sunset is really nice and peaceful with a big sky out here in ocean-island land. We are off the mainland here.

 We took turns doing the “baby dance” – holding Naylah while she is awake and fussy, trying to keep her from fussing. Jean has this step-dance type thing that he does which quiets her down, so we started saying that was his “African dance”. Then everyone started making up their own unique style of rocking and stepping while holding Naylah. Baba does it best though.

 Al, Levin, Jean and Raven are watching a fight on tv at the moment, and telling old Halloween stories. It has also been a sports weekend on tv, golf, Tiger Woods, some soccer game, the All-Star baseball game, and now boxing. We go from Sponge Bob to sports, except for 2 nights of “So you think you can dance”.

 I have about 150 pics on my camera, about 10 short videos I will put onto CDs for everybody and send them a copy. I want Levin and Raven to get done swimming in the morning and stop worrying about someone getting caught in a riptide and drowning. They experienced it late yesterday, when Caspian, Levin, Jean and Raven all felt it, and had trouble getting back in. It’s something you have to be constantly aware of and prepared for. You have to be constantly alert.

THURS., July 15, 2010

 Yesterday late afternoon we spent an hour at the beach, just Leah & Jean, Zakiah, Caspian, myself holding Naylah. I did not get in the water. Naylah was so sound asleep, I did not want to wake her. Leah had a great time riding waves on the boogie board. The tide was low, waves were great but not too big, and they rode the waves easily. It was a good time. The wind has been relentlessly strong. That’s the only thing that makes it difficult. It was low sun, cloudy, and in fact we left when we started hearing regular thunder.

 I took Caspian & Zakiah to the official “museum”, paying $18. to get in. They had about 6 rooms and a gift shop. It was okay, nothing super. They had numerous taxidermied animals in displays, which I found rather bizarre.  They had a “touch tank” where the kids couldn’t touch most of the stuff in there! They had puff fish in a “touch tank” and constantly told the kids not to get the upset by touching them and making them puff up. Of course, that’s what the kids would like to see most. It was kind of dumb. “Don’t touch the starfish!” If there’s anything you can touch and not hurt it, it’s a starfish. They were supposed to touch with 2 fingers, the ROCKS inside the touch tank. There were some turtle puzzles, a puppet theater they could play in with ocean-type puppets, and a few other things.

 At 3:30 we returned for a kid’s program on water safety, which was worth it, they had fun. Then at 7pm, Caspian and I went back for the “ghost walk” where they told us a few stories about ghosts sited in the area. Then they let Caspian dig for shark teeth, where they had lots of them buried in a gravel pit. All in all, I finally got my money’s worth.

 Caspian & I stopped by the turtle watch on the beach, where “turtle parents” (adults) are watching and waiting for baby turtles to hatch & then lead them to the water. About 60 people sit there 24/7 waiting for them, which is pretty cool. You can’t see anything because they are buried in the sand until they come up and out. It is nice to see so many adults watching over small living things to aid in their survival. If only human beings could care as much for one another as they do for hatching turtles, the world would be a good place. Somehow, with human beings, we set limits and lines of nationality and create friends vs. enemies, while turtles are just living creatures subject to extinction that we should nurture and cherish.

 Levin avoided the beach due to his sunburn. They played Scrabble and chess all evening. It was a good day.