Very Productive Day, and Strangeness

Today was a day with Mom, and so was intensely productive: we got me a new watchband, went to the post office to mail stuff to Em, did some clothes shopping of a few different sorts at 3 different stores, dropped by at the Slifka Center, where I worked this summer, visited my Great-Great-Aunt Sarah (whose 96, I think- born 1908), and went to pick up some photos at Stop&Bop. The photos were from a CD< and for some reason that didn't work- shall have to fuss with that again. And visiting G-G-Aunt Sarah was interesting: she's Very deaf, and loosing it a bit, cognitively, but as long as you sort of followed where she talked rather than trying to guide the conversation, it worked pretty well. Of course, I did not have a good day with my talking-to-old-deaf-people voice, so mostly Mom talked with her and I sat and smiled. BUt it worked, and I was glad to have seen her: she's a pretty old lady, and I haven't seen her in far too long, and she's family, and that's important. Especially since when she first moved to the home, she got lots of visits from my grandma and her brothers, but they're all in FLorida most of the time now, so she gets rather fewer visitors. So this seemed to be a rather pleasant surprise for her, and a good thing for Mom and I. And we got to meet her roommate, who's pretty out-of-it, but very cute, and Very fond of G-G-Aunt Sarah.

THe odd thing- Mom was talking to one of her friends after their rehearsal this evening, and it turns out the friend is divorcing her husband. I don't know the friend really well- she's nice, I've worked with her a few times when I was substitute-teaching Hebrew school (she is/was the music teacher), and her older son was in my Hebrew school class and he was always non-offensive, which was saying quite a positive thing about any guy in my class, at least in their interactions with me. It just seems very strange for two people to have spent 20+ years of their lives together, and then decide they can't stand each other any more. I know that in many of these cases there are all sorts of other factors. But from the outside, it seems very strange: 20-something years is a Long time: I'd think that if unsolvable problems were going to arise, they'd do it sooner than that. I know this one is likely to earn me a lot of "you just don't understand"s, but well- from the outside, having relatives who have generally stayed married and figured things out, it seems strange.

Very Productive Day, and Strangeness

Today was a day with Mom, and so was intensely productive: we got me a new watchband, went to the post office to mail stuff to Em, did some clothes shopping of a few different sorts at 3 different stores, dropped by at the Slifka Center, where I worked this summer, visited my Great-Great-Aunt Sarah (whose 96, I think- born 1908), and went to pick up some photos at Stop&Bop. The photos were from a CD< and for some reason that didn't work- shall have to fuss with that again. And visiting G-G-Aunt Sarah was interesting: she's Very deaf, and loosing it a bit, cognitively, but as long as you sort of followed where she talked rather than trying to guide the conversation, it worked pretty well. Of course, I did not have a good day with my talking-to-old-deaf-people voice, so mostly Mom talked with her and I sat and smiled. BUt it worked, and I was glad to have seen her: she's a pretty old lady, and I haven't seen her in far too long, and she's family, and that's important. Especially since when she first moved to the home, she got lots of visits from my grandma and her brothers, but they're all in FLorida most of the time now, so she gets rather fewer visitors. So this seemed to be a rather pleasant surprise for her, and a good thing for Mom and I. And we got to meet her roommate, who's pretty out-of-it, but very cute, and Very fond of G-G-Aunt Sarah.

THe odd thing- Mom was talking to one of her friends after their rehearsal this evening, and it turns out the friend is divorcing her husband. I don't know the friend really well- she's nice, I've worked with her a few times when I was substitute-teaching Hebrew school (she is/was the music teacher), and her older son was in my Hebrew school class and he was always non-offensive, which was saying quite a positive thing about any guy in my class, at least in their interactions with me. It just seems very strange for two people to have spent 20+ years of their lives together, and then decide they can't stand each other any more. I know that in many of these cases there are all sorts of other factors. But from the outside, it seems very strange: 20-something years is a Long time: I'd think that if unsolvable problems were going to arise, they'd do it sooner than that. I know this one is likely to earn me a lot of "you just don't understand"s, but well- from the outside, having relatives who have generally stayed married and figured things out, it seems strange.