I have a million things to do but here I sit, tapping listlessly. It’s 26 degrees Celsius outside. Too hot to take the fur ball for her walk and too late to go to the river. Guess we will wait till it the sun goes down a bit. It’s good day for the solar panels. Making electricity while the sun shines.

I feel a tad melancholy. No worries though. It’s not as bad as my writing. I do have some good news. I had a dental appointment this morning. Teeth cleaned and buffed. No cavities! I’ve set up lawn mowing service for my parents for the summer. Their insurance claim for house damages from last summer’s hail storm dealt with. Contractors to do repairs set up. It does help to solve problems as they come up and do follow ups. Less build up of stress. Today I can afford to mope – but not for long.

Things/life never let up. I know that now. I cannot get blindsided. I know how things go. What goes up must come down. That is gravitas/gravity. I wish I could be less grave, be more light-hearted. But I seem to dwell in the valley of seriousness. I hate frivolity. I can’t even imagine being jocular. Can I blame it on my childhood? What if I told you that my paternal grandmother was a very grumpy person. She didn’t like girls. Good thing she had 3 sons and no daughters. I think she nattered at me alot when I was small. My father was/is a grumpy person also. I’ve heard the story of how he tossed me out on the steps in one of his moods. I was 2 years old. So I got my grumpiness quite honestly – through my genetics. Does that get me off the hook?

Then there’s my maternal grandparents. They literally had to run for their lives – from the Communists. My grandfather got away to Hong Kong. So they put my grandmother in jail instead. It’s a story I’ve told before. Both of them have passed now but they had a few good years reunited with their children, including my mother, in New York City. Their story is in our marrow forever. We are a very serious family.

That is not to say that I/we don’t experience joy. Just don’t expect me to be gleeful in an exuberant manner. I always feel guilty and lacking for not being ‘that’. At the same time, I am not full of gloom and doom. Though I might sometimes sound like I’m apt to leap off a cliff, I am not ‘that’ either. I think it’s not the writer’s feelings the reader is interpreting but rather his or her own. I am a hopeful person mostly. That surprises me, too!