Connected

Another pool day until about 1PM then the thunder rumbled beneath the dark clouds that had rolled in and were hanging over the pool. Before the first fat raindrops peppered the scorched concrete surrounding the pool, I was out and wrapped in a towel and headed for the cover of the cabana.

The rain came in wind driven sheets; fierce and without letup for about 15 minutes. Pools of water gathered in the yard and around the cars parked in the driveway. Unfortunately it also gathered on the front seat of my little Toyota. I had left the window partially down to let the hot air escape while parked in the hot sun and I forgot about it when the rain swooped in. I'll have a wet bottom for the next few days until it drys out.

I'm watching the storms scattered throughout the Gulf and the Atlantic. Right now we have tropical storms but any of them could pick up enough speed to be classed as a hurricane. I'm watching and waiting.

Carrie and Ted arrived this evening. Their mom had to work so I get to have them for an overnight visit. We settled in to our usual routine.


I remember evenings at home when I was a child. All of us and there were seven total sat around the kitchen table with "pick up sticks" or "jacks" or a deck of cards. We played quietly or at least without argument. An argument resulted in the game being "called" by dad who believed if you had to argue about it then it wasn't much of a game. We knew to be polite.



This evening I look around at the family. Carrie is here along with her brother Ted. Ted is sixteen years old and Carrie is almost a 4yr. old. Carrie is sitting in the living room with the laptop pulled up close to her while she plays her games on Noggin.com. The big screen TV in front of her is on the Noggin channel and she is watching Dora when she isn't hitting the keyboard on the laptop. Meanwhile Ted is in the office on the desktop computer either playing a game or getting cheat codes for his X Box.

Me? Well, I'm no better then the rest of them. I'm in the bedroom with the big screen in there tuned to a favorite show of my own and the bedroom laptop is balanced across my rib cage while I lie in a supine position with my foot on a heating pad. Would you say this family was connected or disconnected?



Dinner? Carrie sat in her high chair in front of the TV in the living room and ate mini Raviolis and some banana sausages (that's Vienna sausages to the rest of the world) while Ted had some pork chops that were batch fried a few days ago and stored in the fridge for his return. Ted doesn't much care for an entree and vegetables. He is happy to have a pork chop or two or his other favorite is scrambled eggs, bacon and no toast. I had a bowl of Cheerios. Not one of us ate together. Again we may be not connected?



Right now I have to turn this laptop back to Carrie; I have to go to my room to watch my TV while Carrie stays here in the living room with her cartoon shows. And so it goes. I'm afraid if I set some rules on getting some togetherness going, I would have children gazing at me incredulously and trying to fathom why I would want to change anything. This is the norm for them as pick up sticks and jacks were the norm for my family. Too much progress may not always be a good thing.