23:55 - 24.02.08
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My hip feels better today, thanks for asking dear diary. Not that I'll be trying any of the more demanding yoga asanas, like downward dog, in the next few days. Right now it is the opposite side of the body that is having to realign itself. My youngest did a couple of adjustments on my spine when he arrived home this afternoon. It made me think about the astrological opposition of Saturn and the Sun that took place a few hours before that hip went wonky. Saturn rules bones and the spine - any rigid structure, including the social status quo. They start to harden and bind down either physically or metaphorically when there is too much emphasis of one single response to all stimuli in their environment. When those structures are out of balance, they begin to enter into entropy in other words. Maybe instead of being a conflict-oriented astrological aspect this time, it was about re-balancing inequities in all those rigid or inflexible systems that have developed over the long term. Setting things right. Good use of that energy anyway and hopefully a harbinger of more positive realignments where things are out of place in my life. One can hope anyway.
My youngest had stayed overnight at my oldest son's home. He had been helping his brother build a computer out of spare parts you see. Not long ago males bonded over rebuilding old cars - junkers. Now they bond over rebuilding old computers - junkers. You see there was a computer store owner near my oldest son's home who set up a table or two behind the local school right across from his home. They were giving away all the parts that they considered obsolete and seemed to have decided to make it a benefit first to families with school-aged children. Hence the choice of the schoolyard as the site of their largesse to the community. Could be too that the store owner realized that if those people who recieved his gift needed additional computer supplies they would likely visit him first for those goods. Practical charity. Win, win. Families in that area aren't that well off, you see, so the access to computers that this will provide to those children raises their educational opportunities, while also providing their parents with more access to services and information that isn't available anywhere but on the internet. My Dad observed that that practice of putting things exclusively on-line, is making second class citizens out of about one third of the population who can't use computers, either because of lack of access or the inability to use the technology. I think he included himself in that category. De facto exclusion of some people for any reason in a society is a form of discrimination and its effects can be just as damaging as any other form of withholding services. He feels really frustrated with government agencies that are starting to make it difficult for non-computer access clients to gain assistance. Sort of the same thing as this woman who was refused the right to purchase goods at a store because she only had cash. Uh huh.
I spent the day continuing to work on the on-line - uh oh - family tree. It is fast becoming an addiction. I spent a fair amount of time talking with number two son about his wife's family, as my youngest granddaughter sang happy little ditties in the background while playing in their bathtub. Entertaining. More problems with the software in terms of what it will record in its electrons. Earlier in the morning I had had to go back and re-key a number of entries that were concerned with remarriages and the children that would have been part of that later union. The software seems programmed to set up an entire distinct second branch on the tree, rather than integrating the two sets of children through the common parent, you see. That means half brothers and sisters don't appear together in the database. The challenge with today's information from number two son was that both his wife's parents were orphaned and raised with other people that are, at this point, unknown. Her Mom was born in an Asian Portuguese colony that is dominated by one particular church, so the search for her Mom's records might be easier than for her father, even though his circumstances weren't so dire. Because a lot of the known information is only retained verbally by certain of the older relatives, I asked if I could supply my tape recorder and tapes so that those older relatives could relate the family history without the inhibitions caused by trying to speak in another language - English - and having to write down or key every quotidian bit of information for me. My son seemed to think that was a good approach and it would give my granddaughter a permanent record of the family stories I am sure will be told as the crucial data is collected.
There are a couple of communications I want to send off tonight to various Family members by email to solicit the next layer of family data, so good night for now, dear diary.
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