such small hands

Post-Holiday Blues

It’s the first day back to work after an extended Thanksgiving holiday. I’m here. I’ve done some work. But I can’t say my heart’s in it. My heart is in taking an hourlong nap.

After having Amy and her kitten, Ari, home for six days, it’s unusually quiet around the house. No marathon of “The O.C.” final season. No kitties chasing each other around the living room. No random hissing. Ken left on business this morning, so it’s just me and Gidget knocking around the old house.

I miss everybody.

First Golf Lesson

Ken signed me up for golf lessons at Golf-Tec and I had my first session on Sunday. The hour-long appointment was a combination of evaluation and first lesson.

Golf-Tec is pretty neat because it uses computerized sensors and video to record your swing and measure certain body positions against the normal range of the pros. So you have certain parameters to shoot for and you can see right away whether you are doing it right or what you need to correct.

Since I had never touched a golf club (outside of putt-putt) before July, I was kind of nervous as I took the first few swings for my instructor, Thomas. But he was really nice, which helped to put me at ease. And apparently, FOR A BEGINNER MIND YOU, I did pretty well. So Ken taught me right, anyway. In fact, Thomas told Ken, “She’s got you on the takeaway.”

In this first lesson, Thomas corrected my grip a little. We also worked a lot on my stance as I’m addressing the ball, especially my shoulder and hip tilt. I worked on that in my practice session until I was all tuckered out.

My ambitions don’t include hitting the LPGA circuit, but I just want to play well enough to go out with a group of friends and not be embarrassed, to not let Ken leave me in the dust when we play, and maybe, someday, to break 100. Oh, and to consistently drive off the tee to about 150 yards.

On the New Atheists

This is just such a remarkable, well-written piece, that I simply have to share it. “What the New Atheists Don’t See” by Theodore Dalrymple. It was passed on to me from my Sunday School teacher. Written by an admitted atheist, the piece nevertheless defends belief in something higher than mankind and higher than reason. Here is a sample paragraph:

“The thinness of the new atheism is evident in its approach to our civilization, which until recently was religious to its core. To regret religion is, in fact, to regret our civilization and its monuments, its achievements, and its legacy. And in my own view, the absence of religious faith, provided that such faith is not murderously intolerant, can have a deleterious effect upon human character and personality. If you empty the world of purpose, make it one of brute fact alone, you empty it (for many people, at any rate) of reasons for gratitude, and a sense of gratitude is necessary for both happiness and decency. For what can soon, and all too easily, replace gratitude is a sense of entitlement. Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies.”

Time Change

Getting used to the switch back to standard time is going to take a few more days, apparently. Sunday morning, I was quite awake and refreshed at 5:45. This morning was a bit better, but the body was insisting on getting up before the alarm at 6:00. Maybe it’s age — the systems take a little longer to reset themselves.

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We weathered yet another crisis with Amy’s education last week. She hit a crisis point when she failed a mid-term in one of her Interior Design classes. And she has been struggling mightily with some necessary skills in her construction class (her project is designing and drafting floor plans and elevations for a 1500-square-foot house). After many tearful minutes on the phone, she settled down a little and thought of a few things she could do.

She met with her Interior Design department head … decided to leave the program and drop two classes. In the meantime, she met with a guidance counselor and is taking one of those personality/ability tests to see what would be a good fit.

She’s also meeting next week with the Communications department head to see if THAT would be a good career path. Your prayers for her in regard to settling on a major would be much appreciated.

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Got about halfway through the fall garden cleanup on Saturday. Filled two trash barrels with dead/dying vegetation. If the weather holds up, maybe I’ll finish the work next weekend.

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This weekend’s movie was “Spider-Man 3.” I think the Spider-Man franchise is probably the most successful at turning the comic book into a movie. Although this one seemed to drag a bit for me as the running time went slightly over 2 hours, the action scenes are fantastic.

The previous week, we watched “Pan’s Labyrinth.” A dark fairy tale for grown-ups, the movie tells the story of a young girl in the Franco-controlled Spain of 1944. She escapes from the cruel reality of her life into a macabre fantasy land in which she must prove herself to be the princess of the underworld. A final decisive act of self-sacrifice determines her fate.

The redeeming power of self-sacrificing love. Funny how that is a recurring theme in human life, isn’t it?