Computer Age Limit???

Old people need a time out chair.
If one more person over the age of 50 tells me that the computer is just too hard to figure out then I will have to put hot sauce in their denture glass.
Learning to ride a bike was hard at first too but you persevered, you figured it out!
And you loved it!
As a matter of fact growing up is hard, marriage is hard, raising kids is hard, getting popcorn out of your teeth is hard, but you figure it out.
You make it happen.
I just don't comprehend that "It's too hard" attitude.
I just do not understand it at all.
The computer is as awesome and mind boggling of an entertainment and educational device as the radio was and the TV is now (the TV actually kinda blew the radio out of the water).
Folks back then rushed to acquire both and learn how to use them despite the smacking and pounding of the top, the always needing more adjusting of the tin-foil rabbit ears and the pushing or turning of several buttons and knobs repeatedly all of which were preceded by a good shocking from a groundless plug.
Yet the computer/internet incorporates the radio, the TV, a cool typewriter, a camera and your basic 40 million word Encyclopedia Britannica!
All in one little device......and old timers say its too hard.
Every person over the age of 30 can use or has used one or all of the gadgets that I just mentioned, so how is it too hard?
You push some buttons, look at a screen and TaaaaaDaaaaaa, the world is at your fingertips.
My irritation over this results from me telling other humans my age about my blog and the fun I'm having growing old. They then look at me twice, then look sideways and around for someone lurking behind me that will 'please' carry me back to my private room at the crazy house.


Crazy computer user?

Granted, there is a slight learning curve to start and there are always updates that make even the teenagers irritable but if you don't get it at first, keep pedaling.
Because once you learn, you rarely forget. (I think some folks just want to forget so they don't fall off their computer 'bike' and crack their aged, weary heads)
But the computer keeps your gray cells in motion and I think that some old folks just have tired brains and don't want to be in motion.
Or their brains are on the non-stop train to Geezertown.
OR they just hate me and say they don't know how to use the computer so I will go away from them and no one will suspect that they will go home and secretly write new computer codes for iPhone apps, advise the U.S. military on the latest satellite software or write their own fabulous blog posts on the iPad that they keep in their reusable shopping bag.
OR it could just be an independent stubbornness that children of the depression and the children of those children have in mass quantities.
If you couldn't sew it, grow it, bake it, build it or trade for it, then you didn't really need it anyway.
And as far as I know Best Buy doesn't need a bushel of corn to replace a keyboard or a dozen cupcakes for a new ethernet cord.

So after much consideration, I will keep my hot sauce in the fridge, give those computer-less people my pity and Google some educational pictures of cute bunnies and dancing chickens.
Definitely worth learning the computer for!


BFF Bunny and Chicken.

Thanks for being here.
That means you have a computer!!

Exercise........ppfffftttt.

I totally thought that this American obsession with exercise was just a substitute activity for actual hard work.
There are not many folks anymore who get up at dawn and herd milk cows in and out of the barn, throw hay bales around to feed other livestock, feed the chickens and gather eggs for breakfast, weed and harvest vegetables for daily meals and just out of neccessity, get their heart rate up good and steady for the first 3 hours of the day.
I can't bring to mind very many American folks who spend a whole lot of time doing sweaty, physical labor at any time during the day.
Except.....
Mothers.
If you have any number of children, you know what I'm talking about.
Children of any age add hours of tiring, never ending, physical labor to your day.
Between several hours of preparing daily meals, then several more hours cleaning up the kitchen, endless hours of cleaning the house and a gazillion hours of laundry how do people find time to exercise day in and day out?
I thought that all that mother type stuff was exercise!
Criminitly.
I confess to you my ignorance because apparently I have HIGH Blood Pressure.
The Dr. gave me the meds for reducing it because my BP was, ridiculously, panicked nurse, head buzzing, top of the chart, ears ringing high.
But I just can't take them.
So I thought I would control it with diet and 'exercise'.
Mother type exercise.
Months ago.
Well the diet has helped a smidge and it has lowered my BP several points.
The actual BP reading is now only on the high side of the middle of the chart.
(In all honesty I should say it is the low side of the top of the chart, but 6 of one....;))
Criminitly.
So it has been suggested that I add stupid, American, sweaty, might possibly not be an actual waste of time type exercise.
Running.....ppffffttt.
Aerobics......ppffffttt.
Zumba... oh, heck no.
Yoga....maybe, but not very likely.
We have a quilt rack in the basement that has the name 'Bowflex' on it, so maybe I'll start there.
I'll keep you posted.
Life is not fair.
Life also insists that I now have to add American type of exercise on top of my full schedule of Mother type exercise.
I probably should take up boxing so I can hit things and release some frustration.


My kind of exercise partner.


Thanks for being here.



How I usually deal with frustration.


If you have any motivational tips, aside from avoiding death, please let me know.
Thanks again for being here.

Perfectly.

Having a perfect grandson doesn't leave me many grandbaby antics to blog about.
He plays perfectly, makes perfect baby noises, looks perfect and is probably devising the recipe for the perfect medicine to cure the common cold as well as making a perfect plan to begin world peace inside his perfect brain.

He still just drools an awful lot and motorboats his lips, so communication about sneezing and the end of war is pretty much at a minimum.
But he drools perfectly.


Perfect Baby Jeplen


Perfect Baby Jeplen Again (with drool)


Now I know you are rolling your eyes over this post because the last time I checked every other grandmother had perfect grandchildren too.
I understand perfectly.

Thanks for being here.
You are perfect bleaders* !


*blog readers

Not for the Faint Hearted...well actually.....

Getting closer to death everyday is not something most people want to think about.
I think about it everyday.
Not because I have a terminal disease, a blood feud with family members or a weekend coming up where I am swimming with the sharks.
I have just never been this old before!
How can I not think about death??
Anyone of any age can die at any moment of any day, not just old people.
But for the rest of the world it seems that old people, therefore gray haired people, are like the walking dead.
Not dead as seen in the halloween costume, movie and TV show coolness of zombie deadness, just seen as really dead, as in stone slab cold dead.
Some days I need to think of it as kind of a game.
Sort of a "Psych!", "Sucker!" or "Gotcha!" attitude towards death by the fact that I'm still alive to type a blog post or just get out of bed.
Yet even when I am thinking of other things, someone will remind me that the Grim Reaper has my address on his GPS.
The other day at work a female customer, of about my age was commenting on how nice she thought my gray hair was.
It was braided and has about 4 different colors in it now. Gray, blonde, light brown and dark brown.
(messy as the dickens but "nice color striations", apparently)


Graceful Grandma Gray Braid


She was telling me that in her line of work she could never let her gray hair grow out.
She would loose her job.
I know I screamed it in my head but verbally responded with a loud "WHAT?". (I also thought to myself, "Is that even legal?", but didn't question her or ask who she worked for. Some sort of geriatric job termination patrol, I'm sure.)
She said that old folks just aren't seen as very valuable, so she will color her hair till she retires.
Heaven forbid anyone should actually look at her and notice an age spot or a wrinkle on her non-gray haired body!
What are people thinking?
Aging scares the beejeebies out of most people I guess.
Cause they're scaredy-cats.
They are wussies, gutless and weak kneed.
(picture an old person leaning out their front door, shaking an angry fist at you as you read those insults, and by the way, "Get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!")

I can't say that getting old was anything I looked forward too as a young person, but I knew it would happen eventually. I would just cross that bridge when I came to it.

I am crossing the bridge.

It is not so bad as a young person might think.
Old people do have value.
They have a sense of humor.
They have knowledge and sometimes wisdom.
Many have strong loyalty, honor and a fierce work ethic.
They still want good music, delicious food, nice clothes, money to spend frivolously, safe neighborhoods, lots of wine and peace on earth.
It's just kind of hidden under our 'old person' halloween costume and the comfortable shoes.
The coolness is there but so many people are afraid to look.

Getting older is not for the faint hearted.
We have to be brave and cheat death every day.
We face the inevitable but wear the gray hair as a symbol of the strength we've cultivated over our long lives.
We shake our fists at the Grim Reaper and dare him to walk up our street.
Maybe instead of beckoning Mr. Reaper, my gray hair is my gang sign that keeps him away!
The sort of gang sign that says, "See this hair? Don't mess with me, I'll cut you before you can blink, Jerk....Death.....Reaper......Guy".
Take that!


Thanks for being here.
Have a brave day!