Feeling Old Today!

Wow! Did I feel old today! And it had nothing to do with the fact that I'll be hitting the "Big 4-0" at the end of this year, either! LOL!

Today, I attended the Grade 6 "Graduation" Ceremony for my youngest daughter, T. As I sat there, my oldest daughter had to remind me that soon I'll be the father of TWO teenagers! I was quick to point out that T won't be a teen until September NEXT year, but it still touched a bit of a nerve deep within me. My little girls are growing up way too fast! I've always said that kids should be allowed to grow up as fast as they will, and not be held back by their parents, but sometimes even I want to hit the brakes a bit! It seems like only yesterday they were just learning how to walk, talk and explore their world. Seeing some of my daughter's classmates tottering up to receive their certificates in impossibly high heels and filmy gowns made me realize that they are teetering on the edge of womanhood already! Where did the time go? (T wore a tan skirt and black "dressy" T-shirt with sparkle flowers on it. Not all that fancy, but a major concession for my daughter who HATES dresses!)

I will have to say that this whole idea of a "Grade 6 Graduation" has me a little off kilter as well! When I was in school, I had a Grade 8 grad, a high school grad and a college grad. My girls have already been through TWO graduations and they haven't even hit high school yet! Both had a Kindergarten graduation as well as the Grade 6 one. Next year my oldest will be graduating yet again from Grade 8, followed by her younger sister again the following year! Four graduations in as many years! I wonder if we aren't diminishing the importance and specialness of graduations for our kids by having all these "little" graduations prior to the "big ones". To see 11 and 12 year old girls dressed in filmy, frilly, slinky prom dresses and stiletto heels strikes me as just plain WRONG! Seeing these boys in tuxedos (worn baggy and without a tie, of course!) is silly to say the least! Not all the kids were dressed up though. The school is located in a lower class neighbourhood of my small city, so, right next to tuxedos and sexy dresses (my mind just shudders at that description, but that's the fashion stylists for you! Someone should drill into their collective heads that our daughters are NOT tramps and sluts!!!!) are kids in stained, everyday clothes and sandals! Some parents were all dressed up for the occasion, other parents looked like they had just crawled out of bed or some sleazy bar to attend. The total lack of respect for the occasion by most of the parents attending makes me wonder why they came in the first place! The kids themselves didn't seem to really care to be on their best behaviour and goofed off most of the time. Even the teachers were dressed casually, one male teacher presented an award dressed in a sloganed t-shirt, wrinkled cargo shorts and garish running shoes! I'm sure the kid who won that award will look back at that picture as an adult and wonder why his teacher was so disrespectful! All in all, the ceremony seemed like a farce and a lot of the parents were leaving as soon as the last kid got her certificate. I was very disturbed by this, and can only wonder how these kids will appreciate their more important graduations in the future. Familiarity has been known to breed contempt.

I'll get off my soapbox now. If I don't, I'll start ranting about some of the other things I came across today, and I'll REALLY start to come across like an old curmudgeon! LOL!

Adding to the psychological aged feeling was today's incredible heat! In the Toronto area, the temperature got as high as 35 Canadian degrees which translates to 95 American degrees. Now that may not seem like much to Burfica in Arizona, but when you factor in the humidity, the temperature felt more like 40 degrees (104 F). The humidity makes it impossible for your sweat to evaporate, makes it very hard to breathe and traps all that smoggy pollution right down around ground level for us to inhale with each laboured breath. Today was a good day for being inside with air conditioning! Unfortunately, thanks to many years of governments turning a blind eye to mismanagement at our electrical utilities, Ontario can hardly meet the demand on it's electrical system and now they are threatening rolling black-outs in Toronto and other cities in Southern Ontario. So, all you heard on the radio and TV today was, "Please turn your air conditioners down (meaning turn UP the temperature) to help save electricity!" I think we should just shut down the entire province during high heat days like today and REALLY save electricity! But I am digressing into another rant... back on topic I go! The oppressive air quality, heat and humidity made for a very exhausting day for a lot of people! One more way I felt old today! Tomorrow is forecasted to start out like today with even higher temps forecasted, but then, around mid-afternoon, a cold front is projected to arrive, bringing massive thunderstorms and radically cooler, dryer air behind them. Because of that, I'm also forecasting another nasty headache for myself tomorrow. And I have a PILE of work to do! I think I'm gonna have to start buying shares in Bayer, Advil and McNeil Labs (the makers of Tylenol)! This is when I really wish I had a pool in my backyard. Nothing beats the heat like total submersion in water that's 10-20 degrees cooler than the air! LOL! Oh, before any of you suggest I go to a local pool, I refuse to go swimming in city run public pools unless I'm with a group that has chartered the pool for a private swim. I've contracted far too many eye infections while swimming in a public pool to trust them very much! Maybe when my girls get home from school tomorrow (if the t-storms haven't started) I'll challenge them to a water gun fight in our backyard! LOL! Or maybe I'll just stay indoors and lie on the couch all day too! ;-) Notice the word "work" didn't appear in there? Something tells me I'm gonna be sadly disappointed tomorrow! Heh heh!

Where ever you are, I hope you stay cool too!