Glug. We're treading water here. - Over 1.5 inches of rain up until Sunday and almost another inch so far last night and this morning. The ant trap on my hummingbird feeder has become a small splashing fountain because the eaves trough is overflowing, my newly planted annuals are looking pale and wan and the grass is growing into hay as we watch. Canadian fascination with the weather in full spate here.
It's been good news so far this week. Our great niece delivered her baby successfully on the weekend, making us great-great aunt and uncle for the third time, and our neighbour called this morning to say that her daughter had just produced a fine baby girl and all goes well. Lovely to hear. The names, though, are making my head spin a bit. One of the new little girls is Elsa, not a name much used but plain and spellable. (Is that a word? Well, Spellchecker took it.) The other baby is Maelle, a name that has a beautiful sound but that, ex teacher that I am, I foresee may cause some problems when she goes to school. The names that people are giving their children lately fascinate me - there is so much creativity and striving for the unusual. My name, plain old Mary, was so popular 70+ years ago, that I spent one summer as a teenager working, in a crew of seven, with five Marys including me. But no one uses it much these days.
Ah, the twenty-first century and its joys. As I struggle with my IPad and my brand new and quite incomprehensible Galaxy phone, as I wander with dismay through clothing stores filled with things I do not want to buy, as I watch most of the population of any city I visit spend more time on their cell phones than off, I feel more and more disconnected. I have a little list of terms I struggle to understand - bluetooth and ICloud for two. I am completely out of tune with the latest in music and video. I am becoming a dinosaur. Will my wrinkled body emerge from some unnatural preservation twenty centuries from now and puzzle my unimaginable descendants? Probably not. I will have to settle for puzzling my immediate descendants now.
The only thing that I feel sure of is that, regardless of what else has changed, people will still be complaining about the weather.
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I am looking out at a grey afternoon with low cloud and fine, fine snow showering down. More of a November feel to it than pre–Christmas De...
We have a cellphone for emergencies. It's non-smart, and we don't really use it. So we are really out of it. Who knew that phones would inherit the earth?
ReplyDeleteWe've now had to drive in O twice in nothing but rain. I see it's brightening up now though.
My name was also common back in the day. Unfortunately, it is still common in certain colloquial uses. :(
I have always loved the name Mary. In 30 years of teaching, I have had only a few. Sad. My alarm now is the heavy-handed use of the letter "Y" in names both masculine and feminine. Odd, variant spellings abound. Here in NEO, there is a commercial for a hospital featuring a baby girl named Peightyn. I guess Peyton is too ordinary, let alone Mary.
ReplyDeleteNot too terribly long ago, the trendy names for girls were Emma, Hannah, and Ava.
My dear, we're all dinosaurs. And for so, so many reasons.
true enough! People are complaining about how dry and windy it is here. Just a few weeks ago they were thinking summer would never get here. I'm looking at becoming a dinosaur myself :)
ReplyDeleteI have an old-fashioned name, too. I like it. I also gave my boys plain, solid names. Common ones, too. I'm a fan of no frills.
ReplyDeleteWhen the iPhone first came out, I thought, Why would anyone need a phone with a camera and/or internet? And now I use my iPhone religiously. Sigh...