Aging

I am getting old. Actually, I think I already got old, and somehow managed not to take note of the fact as it was happening. I have another birthday in a few weeks, number 67. In another three years I will be 70. My grandfather was old at 70 - I am not ready to be old, but I'm almost 70.

Phyllis and I had dinner with our youngest child, her husband, and their 6-month old - and we had a great time. It was a relaxed pleasant evening, with lots of laughs, some supplied by a cheerful curious baby and some by silly adults. There is something about spending time with our daughter and her husband that makes gloom go away. I'm depressive by nature, and after some time with Liz, James and Sammy my whole day seems brighter. For one thing it is impossible to be anything but happy and silly with a happy baby. For another, our youngest child is so great with us, her wonderful husband and the rest of the world.

I guess one thing that helps is that with her in command of her quarter of the world, we can relax secure in the knowledge that the world is a better place with her and her husband in it - and the child is just a bonus.

For myself, I should open a chapter of the Procrastinator's Society just for me - I am so far behind in just about everything that it is really not good for depression. I have a bunch of computer hardware cluttering up my house, some of which arrived a year ago that I have not yet assembled and put to work, and it needs done. My part of the basement is a disaster area, needs stuff cleaned up, thrown out, upgraded, overhauled and generally sterilized, cauterized and replaced. I need to do it and do you think I can get my arse in gear to get started? I dome home at night, and end up in front of our (admittedly lovely large LCD HD) TeeVee, read mail, write things once in a while and generally become immobile, eventually going to bed, and get up tired in the morning to go to work. I can't retire, and really don't want to yet, but my energy lever is subterranean these days, and it is pissing me off!

Maybe tomorrow I can at least get that RAID array into Arnold (all my PC's have names, and Arnold is the big server downstairs that does the mail and such....) and get Home Server loaded and get the network restarted in a functional manner.

But I did get some neat stuff for when I get It together - some good wireless toys, a print server or two (USB) that will make some of our remote printing and scanning awhile lot more flexible - and a few things that are just neat toys that I'll have fun with.

The weather is supposed to turn to absolute crap - I should have gone out on the motorcycle last week on the one warm day, because between snow and frigidity the weather is conspiring to keep me off the bike. Doesn't help that my knees are at least 30 years older than the rest of me, either....

Maybe I'll take off a few hours Wednesday and go over to see Liz & Sammy - and let the baby make me laugh some more. I forgot or maybe never noticed just hos delightful babies can be - when we had them around here that were ours, we were too busy trying to make sure we did things right and that everything was in order - with Sammy, that's Liz and James' problem - we can just enjoy Sammy, make faces at him and laugh with him.

I guess I'm not so depressed any more - at least until the weather report comes along in a few minutes.

G'night, y'all.