Okay.
Let me take a scant three minute break from the cushiness of my life and just WHINGE. (whinging is the not the same thing as whining. There's a whole different vibe.)
I woke up this morning to help my grandmother dig holes for the new garden. We don't use shovels, we use pick axes, so it's not proper 'digging' so much as it is throwing up clumps of dirt and breaking new ground (and incidentally my back). My grandmother dislocated a bone in her right arm a few weeks back, so the last half of my summer vacation was helping her get used to not having her right arm being completely mobile - dressing her, doing more laundry, cutting things in the kitchen, etc, being a mobile and slightly less useful right arm in essence. This doesn't bother me - my grandmother brought me up since I was a baby, so fair's fair - but she's driving me insane. Everything you shouldn't be doing when you're in your 80s with a cast on one arm and not the most stellar health record - she's doing. And of course, whenever I tell her not to do it, she gets all huffy and says, "well no one else was going to do it," and then I have to make my exaggerated face and go, "well, I WAS GOING TO DO IT....eventually."
The difference between my parents and me - is that I'm generally more laid back. Not so laid back that I'd be in a coma, but I get things done in the same day. They want EVERYTHING done in the same hour, that minute if possible. My mother said something about how there's a polite way of saying "I'll do that as soon as I'm done with ...." in Chinese, and that not only am I being lazy, I'm being rude.
......
Anyway - yes, back to the manual labor that I'm not used to - I've been trained to mow the lawn, lift moderately heavy things...but the relentless pace of picking up the pick axe, having it hit the sod and ploughing it...it's damn hard.
And tiring.
And now I'm sore and cranky. Clearly my strength endurance hasn't actually prepared me for the eventualities of, oh, say living ON A FARM.
now I'm going to shut the fuck up and go back to my priviledged suburban life.
ETA: the bright spot of my week has been the WORLD TOMINATION and seeing it splashed in my friends' LJs and LJs of complete strangers (and of course like Pavlov's dog, I must flock to and squee excitedly about Tom! Tom! Tom!) and having people credit me with the Tom_love. So thank you guys.
ETA: (again) i JUST CUT THE HEAD OFF A FISH. I AM SCARRED FOR LIFE.
Let me take a scant three minute break from the cushiness of my life and just WHINGE. (whinging is the not the same thing as whining. There's a whole different vibe.)
I woke up this morning to help my grandmother dig holes for the new garden. We don't use shovels, we use pick axes, so it's not proper 'digging' so much as it is throwing up clumps of dirt and breaking new ground (and incidentally my back). My grandmother dislocated a bone in her right arm a few weeks back, so the last half of my summer vacation was helping her get used to not having her right arm being completely mobile - dressing her, doing more laundry, cutting things in the kitchen, etc, being a mobile and slightly less useful right arm in essence. This doesn't bother me - my grandmother brought me up since I was a baby, so fair's fair - but she's driving me insane. Everything you shouldn't be doing when you're in your 80s with a cast on one arm and not the most stellar health record - she's doing. And of course, whenever I tell her not to do it, she gets all huffy and says, "well no one else was going to do it," and then I have to make my exaggerated face and go, "well, I WAS GOING TO DO IT....eventually."
The difference between my parents and me - is that I'm generally more laid back. Not so laid back that I'd be in a coma, but I get things done in the same day. They want EVERYTHING done in the same hour, that minute if possible. My mother said something about how there's a polite way of saying "I'll do that as soon as I'm done with ...." in Chinese, and that not only am I being lazy, I'm being rude.
......
Anyway - yes, back to the manual labor that I'm not used to - I've been trained to mow the lawn, lift moderately heavy things...but the relentless pace of picking up the pick axe, having it hit the sod and ploughing it...it's damn hard.
And tiring.
And now I'm sore and cranky. Clearly my strength endurance hasn't actually prepared me for the eventualities of, oh, say living ON A FARM.
now I'm going to shut the fuck up and go back to my priviledged suburban life.
ETA: the bright spot of my week has been the WORLD TOMINATION and seeing it splashed in my friends' LJs and LJs of complete strangers (and of course like Pavlov's dog, I must flock to and squee excitedly about Tom! Tom! Tom!) and having people credit me with the Tom_love. So thank you guys.
ETA: (again) i JUST CUT THE HEAD OFF A FISH. I AM SCARRED FOR LIFE.
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