Kathy A. Graff

09:33 am: Long time between posts
It has been over a year already! Looks like there have been some changes to LiveJournal in that time.

Seems there are just too many places to go. I keep up with many of my relatives on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/kgraff. I started posting knitting and crochet projects on Ravelry http://www.ravelry.com/people/kgraff instead of my personal web site http://threads.kgraff.net/ or blog http://kgraff.net/blog/ because people who are interested will have a better chance of finding them there.

I am wondering if this proliferation of "communities" is serving to separate people rather than get them together? Joining all of them is time consuming, fortunately some have the ability to import posts from your other sites automatically. A web of webs?

This time last year my mom was recovering from her first stroke. She had a second worse stroke and with a number of other medical problems is now dealing with living with long term effects. In some ways this is more difficult than dealing with acute illness.

Bode is feeling his age and arthritis since early spring. His gait (sheepdog style, body almost motionless while the feet move like on wheels) used to go to the rhythm of some of Percy Grainger's compositions. Now he limps and may stumble and stops frequently. He seems to be in good spirits though, that tail wags just fine.

I have set aside the needlework projects for summer stuff. Have been munching Alpine strawberries and black raspberries (the ones that didn't bear fruit for the first two years!). Now the red raspberries are starting to ripen. For a second year I can't seem to get marigolds to grow well. The slugs reduced many of the first ones I planted to twigs. I have been baiting traps with cheap beer to try to get them under control. This damp weather just encourages them and being at the base of cliff that is heavily forested contributes as well.

Another big change is that this spring I opted for a DSL connection after years of using dial-up. I needed to add call waiting because my parents were having trouble using the phone in general (physical problems along with using a complicated calling card) and were discouraged when they finally connected if they got a busy signal. Nothing is simple anymore, got introduced to the world of "bundles" and after about an hour on the web site and another hour on the phone told the support tech that I would go with whatever they could put together that was under $50 a month.

Seems that the commercial folks are resisting the idea that there is no technological reason why all telecommunications and entertainment (TV, radio, FAX, telephone, movies, etc.) can come through one wire or wireless connection. I suspect that a high proportion of the current economic problems is from counting on people to be ignorant of the very basics of how things work. sigh...

I don't get digital TV signals here, so the DSL has allowed me to keep up with some of my favorite shows as well as viewing some that I could not get with the antenna. PBS, NBC, and CBS video web sites seem to work very well. On the down side, after the initial installation, my first bill didn't reflect the price I bargained for, so had to call to remind them. This kind of thing is a good reason not to have your bills automatically deducted from a bank account.