Just Rambling

Forgot to mention that, yes, dry erase markers do work bettr than chalk for the graph theory stuff. So far. It's easier to erase cleanly while trying to find paths through a complicated graph, at the very least, and the colors show up better. We're about done with Chapter 5 (I've got a few more examples to do), so I don't know for sure if the same will be true through the rest of this section of the book.

Taiji yesterday was quite enjoyable. I've found that my push-hands is better against James than it is against Mark or Joe. Why? Because James is much larger than I am and has a good root. This means that I absolutely cannot get away with trying to muscle him (and if he were better, I would REALLY regret trying to muscle him), so it has to come from the waist and my own root. Mark and I are about evenly matched, size for size and weight for weight. He's slightly larger than I am, but overall it's an even match. Joe is much more slender than the rest of us, which makes it a horrible temptation to use muscle. However, he's good enough to use any arm tension I give him. It just hasn't broken me of the habit yet. *sighs* Oh, and Don offered some sword lessons since I'm in IF two extra days a week. So I've got a sword lesson on Wednesday. That should be fun.

Other news... Grandma. She gets better sometimes, and then she gets worse, and better, than worse, but the getting worse is winning out. I don't think she's going to last much longer. I don't know if she WANTS to last much longer, as tired and miserable as she's been lately. I'll miss her when she goes. Strangely, the thing that bothers me the most is that, if I ever have children, they won't know their great-grandma. I guess that's an odd thing to regret.

Her friends in Akron are the same chronological age she is, but they look oh so much younger than she does. She's starting to look like I remember Great Granmda Fern looking (and I'm not about to tell her that; I doubt she'd appreciate it). Grandma Fern lived to be 90. She died on Monday, 13 February, 1989. I remember her being hard of hearing and moving slowly, but I don't remember her ever having as many problems as Grandma Parker is right now. I suppose the reason she's so much worse off is her diabetes. She's been diabetic since she was 10. They told her mother (my Grandma Fern) that she probably wouldn't make it to 30, let alone past 70. She's had a good, full life. I do wish she'd gotten to see her friends from Akron more often after she moved up here.

My Grandad Parker died when I was a junior in high school. He was a gruff, hard-to-like man who teased me mercilessly as a child (and not in a way that I enjoyed), but he truly loved my grandma. Details are fuzzy, but I remember an incident where he thought Grandma had been hurt, and I heard him calling for my mom to come and help. The pain and fear in his voice told me everything I needed to know about him. Hard and gruff as he was on the outside, he was a good man inside.

*sighs* This went further afield than I'd intended.