Oldsramblings

One would think that as someone who works from home, has no social life besides Facebook, and few if any other responsibilities, that I would be able to

1. Blog more than once a month
2. Actually finish some dolls, jewelry, etc*
3. Read books I haven't read before at least four times
4. Read books written for those over 12
5. Bathe regularly
6. And whatever else it is that normal adults do.


Naturally, this isn't the case.  I have started about ten different entries in the past month but have not finished them for many reasons including but not limited to a overage of Oldstime, incredibly ill behaved dogs, and my own fascinatingly fluctuating brain chemistry.

I know that the Olds live here, and that it is technically their home in which they are gracious enough to allow me to live.  But they are here ALL the TIME.  The Oldest Old is retired, and spends a lot of time puttering around his home office, but comes out periodically to chastise me for whatever I am currently doing that does not look worklike to him.  Then he lets out the worst of the three Incredibly Ill Behaved Dogs, pats her on the head, plays with her for 30 seconds until she's in a complete frenzy, and then, as he's running back up the stairs, he yells "Watch that dog for me! Don't put her back in her crate right away!"

Then he disappears for two hours, claiming he is working but quite often is just untwisting paper clips and moving stacks of papers into other stacks and then knocking them over and cursing.  There is a lot of cursing with the Oldest Old.

The Other Old mostly hovers around the foodroom and the adjoining TVroom.   The OldestOld and I have ridiculed her continually for a year now about her soap operas but the thing about the Other Old is that criticism has never had any effect on her.  She is one of those people who does exactly what she likes, and even if you tell her not to, and give her actual reasons why she shouldn't do a certain thing, she will nod, agree, smile sweetly, and then quietly do what she was going to do in the first place.  I don't know why I still find this at all surprising.  She has been this way my, and I'm sure her, entire life.  It is just that she seems so nice while she's doing it that you don't realize that she is completely immune to everyone else's opinions.  I am pretty sure that as she gets older that this will become even more pronounced and annoying than it is now, but the bonus will be the amusement value.

That is the reason that the Olds are actually fun to live with; because they have no idea that anything [let alone everything] they do is completely opposite from how most people do things.  Most people, when the kitchen trashcan is full, will, you know, EMPTY it.  The Olds, though, play a game called  "Whoever Complains Takes It Out".  They have one of those trashcans that slides into the cupboard and looks like a cupboard door.  Which is good because at least when it is full they can't just continue to balance things on top of it until the stack is six feet tall, like they did at our old house.  No, now they just start putting things on the counter right over the trash drawer.  I will walk into the foodroom only to find the trash packed so tightly that the wooden joins of the drawer are straining, and a pile of used paper towel, dried limes, empty jello cups and wine bottles precariously balanced on the edge of the counter.  Oh, and there will also be peanut shells sprinkled through the pile and often in a trail across the floor.   However, if I break and take the trash out, then I lose the game. Also, I'm denied the pleasure of listening to them bicker about taking it out, and then watching when they finally crack and do it.  Because since they both hate to do it so much, they always insist that it is a two person job that both of them must do together.  Of course, I always do it myself.  But I am not [quite] an old.  Yet.










*tomfoolery