Bill Watt’s Blog

Yesterday was the closing on his house in MA.

I visited there pretty much every year I can remember growing up, went for at least one Christmas to visit Grandma and Grandpa without Mom and Dad as a kid, and lived there for about 10 years after college during my, “Oh my God… I have to work for the rest of my life. What now?” phase.

It was good to go back at the end of may and move out most of the rest of my junk (thanks to Mom, Dad and James for getting the very last of it mailed out) and to spend some time with Grandfather. It was also good to see him near the end of my sabbatical but never again will we be in that house that he built while my dad and uncle were just kids.

Some of my fondest family memories are of sitting in the kitchen on summer nights with my grandparents and parents and drinking hot tea (with milk per the style in the Old Country). It was something we did because it was my grandparent’s home and that’s when they would sit and talk before going to bed each night.

Looking back now I can imagine how they would work all day in the opposite of my Web 2.0 world and then take that time to sit and catch up. Funny how talking about my grandfather makes me really miss my grandmother. I wish she could have seen the world as it is now (with the exception of the global political garbage) and to see how her grandsons turned out.

If you ask my brother he’ll tell you I was her favorite but I think the combination of me growing my hair to hippie lengths and those awesome great grandkids would have made James the favorite hands down.

There is a thought that has been brewing this week and waiting for a few free minutes where it can become a blog entry. Now is the time and here is the idea.

Alice often jokes that I prefer her when she is sick because I can take care of her and she doesn’t have the energy to fight back. I have come to the conclusion that this is not the reality but instead it is that Alice achieves a Zen like openness that allows her to see and accept things beyond her normal perception. For instance, that I am most often right in what I tell her.

Here is the short list of what would normally be revolutionary changes in Alice’s behavior that, in the context of her being sick, make me think she has transcended to a higher plane:

* When told she had to stay home she went and got her blackberry and put it on the table next to the bed without once hissing at me
* When told to put socks on when walking around the house… she did
* After heading back to work later in the week she used her blackberry to let me know she was at the doctor’s office getting checked out
* No, you don’t understand… the last one is huge. Normally I can never find her and here she is using technology to let me know she’s ok.
* After we got her work laptop setup for her WFH day she looked at me and said, “I think I need a new laptop for home.” 2 years of me saying that and today she suggests it… that’s progress! (PS- I try to explain to her that I only support hardware less than 3 years old and anything between 2 and 3 is begrudging at best)
* Tonight while telling me how she’s using the blackberry more and more for work when out of the office and she joked about how soon she’d be checking emails over dinner. I fell in love with her all over again.

Yes, I know… first world problems.