Does this mean I’m old?

I just gave my little brother a crash course on VCR operation.

I have a massive collection of Disney VHS tapes that I hoarded from my childhood. I also have a VCR player that was just recently hooked up to the TV downstairs so that the fiance and I could enjoy a classic Disney flick.

Several days ago, I got into a discussion with my other brother (while the little bro was present) about such Disney goodness as Aladdin, etc. I declared that, not only did I have the VHS tape, but I also had the means by which to play it.

Well, today, the little bro, seeing the means, decided that he wanted to refresh his memory as to the wonders of “Ahladin”.

“No, no, it’s Aladdin.”

“Oh, right.”

So I pulled out the tape and handed it to him. But then I paused. Certainly he had watched many a VHS in his early years… but he is now the ripe old age of twelve and video tapes are a thing of the past.

“So you know how this works,” I said. After a hum and a haw, I decided I would at least begin the discussion and see where he picked it up, where his memory came in.

We opened up the VHS and I saw that, indeed, it had been stopped halfway through.

“Okay, you’ll need to rewind it first,” I said.

“Okay.” pause. “What’s rewind?”

Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you, I am not making this up.

So I did the only thing I could. I brought him to the VCR, sat him down and walked him through VHS Watching 101.

It’s interesting, because operating a VHS tape could be seen as simpler. You put it in the machine, when you want a break, you hit stop, when you want to start again, you just put it in and it begins where you left off. None of this “scene selection” stuff, shifting through menus, etc.

But on the flip side, with a DVD, you slide it in the tray, press play and there you go. No fast forwarding through commercials, no need to worry about rewinding when you’re done or the picture and sound degrading.

DVDs are definitely a step forward. It’s just amusing to see the constraint that time has on certain technologies. There are entire generations that have no idea how to operate video tapes.

Defining

Let us imagine last night’s scene, shall we?

It is after dinner, shortly before the little brother’s bedtime. He has just finished a bowl of ice cream and is preparing to watch a (hilarious!) kids’ show, thus he is rather hyper. I am reading Pride and Prejudice, thus I am not.

We enter the scene in time to hear Matthew calling for my attention.

“Hey, Tara… Tara! … Tara? … Helloooo.”

I do not respond. Mostly because I am engrossed in my book. Partially because I am ignoring him.

“Tara!” he continues. I still do not respond. He jumps to his feet and stands right in front of me, waving his hands in my face. “Hello!!”

It is at this point that Mom notices what is going on.

“Matthew, what are you doing?”

“Tara isn’t talking to me!”

“Well, stop bugging her!” Mom responds (quite logically, I must add).

“But I’m trying to ask her something!”

“What’s that?”

“She won’t tell me what obnoxious means.”

Voting

Today I went to my local polling station to vote.

We have just moved, so we lined up to register in our new town. My parents were ahead of me in line and Matthew was beside me, doing what little brothers do (ie, pestering their big sisters). I pulled out my driver’s license and proof of residence. Little did I suspect what was coming.

An official-looking older woman approached us, anxious to be of help, asking the general, “You folks all set?” type of questions.

Yes, thank you, we’re fine.

And then she turned to me, noticed my driver’s license in hand and asked me the question I should have been expecting, yet was entirely unprepared for:

“Are you old enough to vote?”

Mom: *choke*

Dad: *cough*

Me: *sigh*

I smiled pleasantly and assured her that, yes, I am old enough to vote. “I’m 22.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, completely surprised. “I am so sorry! You look so much younger than that.”

“Yes, I know. It’s okay, I get that a lot.”

“Well, at least when you get to my age,” she continued, “you’ll be glad for it.”

Indeed.

Afterward, I turned to my mom. “So I guess I still look 13, eh?”

“No, she said you look 15.”

“Yea, no,” I said. “That was Matthew.”

PB & J

I discovered this today, scribbled on a scrap of paper in with many other notes of a similar kind:

I’ve learned that strength and dignity are not lost through displays of weakness.

A silly example is when I confess to a friend that I cannot open a jar of jelly. I feel… laughably weak doing so, especially when this friend takes the jar and in one motion, twists off the lid. But to use this as a metaphor (ah, metaphors), in a very simple way, this is how the Body of Christ should look. I am strong in some areas, but I am also weak in others. If I readily display my strengths, but hide all of my weaknesses, two undesirable things happen. First of all, assuming everyone else is also hiding their weaknesses, my strengths become completely irrelevant. As far as I can tell, there isn’t anyone who needs what I have to offer. No one is weak, so what does it matter how strong I am? And the second problem is that we have all sorts of weaknesses, frayed threads, weak links, crumbling walls (whatever other image you’d like) and none of these areas are being addressed. No one is saying, “hey, I’ve got a leak in the dam over here, can anyone help me patch it up?” and so it continues leaking and eroding, growing weaker, spilling over, spilling out, and eventually breaking, sometimes in catastrophic ways. But when we confess our faults to one another (a trusted one another), when we admit our weaknesses, we find people who are strong in those very areas.

“Yea, I can’t open a jar of jelly, but I can whip up a mean grilled pb & j sandwich.”

And my friend says, “I can certainly open a jar of jelly *twist*, but grilled pb & j? I have no idea how to make that, but I sure am hungry.”

And there we are, filling each others needs, complimenting each others’ strengths and weaknesses and building each other up. When that is how we seek to live, our lives become inextricably intertwined, balancing each other out and becoming greater than we were just as ourselves.

Hopefully my metaphor can carry the point I am trying to make, despite being (as I’ve already admitted), a rather silly example

And just for the record, grilled pb & j is for real. And mighty tasty, especially if you’ve got a sweet tooth. If you can help me get this darn jar open, I could be persuaded to make one for you

Moving in…

After being away for a week (weddings galore!) I returned… to this:

Which is exactly what I asked for.

“Please don’t unpack anything in my room,” I told my parents, for a couple of reasons. First, I’m a little, how shall we say it? in possession of very specific personal preferences? At least when it comes to the set up of my room. Also, in a slightly more altruistic vein, I am perfectly aware of how much stuff I have and I didn’t want my folks to have to deal with it while I was gone.

So, even though I knew what I was going to be walking into, there was still some initial shock, mostly because, having been removed from the process for a very full week, I’d sort of forgotten what moving was like. It only took me a moment to recover and form a plan, which I have been working on since.

Phase I: unpack and put away books (can you tell I’m an English student?)

Phase II: unpack and put away clothes

Phase III: make bed (because sleep is good )

Phase IV: fix various storage boxes in their new homes

Phase V: rearrange small pieces of furniture

Phase VI: arrange knickknacks.

And then I should be done. Hopefully. I’m on phase III right now. We can’t seem to locate my sheets, which makes life interesting. But that’s okay. Just happy to see some order being restored.

Little bro: Knot Expert ;)

So, I just need to brag about my littlest brother for a minute here. As I may have mentioned before, he is 11 years old.

Yesterday, I took him rock climbing. It was actually a lot of fun. He did a great job, trying a lot of walls and making it to the top of one or two of them (a great feat when it isn’t something you normally do). We weren’t there for very long (we’re working on endurance ) but the thing that impressed me most is what he did learn in the time we were there.

Here is an article on the basic climbing knots, the figure eight and the fisherman’s knot.

And this is the sequence of events:

1. First wall, I tied little bro in (doing the knots for him to climb)
2. Second wall, I demonstrated (just once, mind you) how to tie the knots
3. Third wall, I told little bro I wanted him to try the knots and see how he did.

In a word, flawless. Absolutely flawless.

This video is when he was tying in to his fourth wall of the day, his second attempt at tying the knots. Again, flawless. I was super impressed. When I was working at the gym, there was rarely a person who could tie-in flawlessly on their first attempt, adults and children alike, and here is this 11-year-old, tying-in with all the deftness of someone who has been climbing for years.

So cool. After the move, we definitely need to invest in a membership at the rock climbing gym

also, I really like the song playing in the background—anyone know what it is?

Quick…

At the risk of freaking out both of my parents by stating an actual number on a forum they both read, we move in 19 sleeps* ( ). I have ten more days of work, three more weekends of excitement, and 11 or so afternoons of relative boredom (balanced by the pressing assurance that I ought to be doing something productive). It’s exciting.

We’re clearing away a bunch of old furniture that we won’t really have use for in our new house. My dresser is to depart on Tuesday, meaning that I have to clear everything out from inside of it. That is, clothes, knitting, papers (papers and more papers), and a lot of miscellaneous stuff that I decided at one time or another was important to keep. We’ll see how I feel about it now that it has been sitting untouched in those drawers since I sorted through my entire room three months ago.

Anyway, ’tis exciting. Weird to think (two and a half weeks?? Waaah!), but exciting. Check back for more updates! (Though there may not be any more move-related posts until we’ve actually moved )

*Hopefully this is relatively self-explanatory. But in case it’s not, when Matthew was much younger, that was how we counted down to exciting events for him. “7 sleeps until your birthday!”, “4 sleeps until we go on vacation!”, “One more sleep until Christmas!”, that kind of thing.