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Apr. 25th, 2008 10:32 pmThank you, everyone, for the birthday wishes.
I've had a lovely day. It was low key and delightful. For me a day is perfect when I have friends and family round and learn a bunch of new stuff. I stayed in and got to see one in-law, one uncle, two parents, two sisters, three friends and six young people. Tick the friends and family box. A very big tick.
My tall nephew brought in his longbow for me to see. I didn't just see it, I also discovered that (unexpectedly) I could shoot one. We have no idea if I can hit anything, just that my body strength is enough to make it bend sufficently. This was a surprise, as I haven't had much arm strength for years, thanks to the RSI. It just goes to show that the force doesn't come from the arms, or even the shoulders. My tall nephew suggested that one for my height would work well and then we got talking about everything from arrows to how thick targets need to be. I knew the theory of longbows, but the practice is far less intimidating in one way (it's way more manageable than I had thought) and far more in another (it has such force behind it).
My not-nearly-so-tall niece has advanced my education too and I know a bit more about chromosomes and how to understand the work of the human genome project. She's very good at explaining things and the afternoon tea table discussion revolved for a while around men with XXY and women with XXX and men with XX chromosomes. What I particularly loved about this was the discovery that inheritance isn't nearly as stable as it sounded in my high school science class.
I need to find out more about conditions that can turn different traits on and off. My not-nearly-so-tall niece's example was that two generations after a famine, people in a region were shorter. This makes me wonder about the effect of different cultural practices on genetic inheritance. I need to learn more. Much more.
The friends were all especially charming and various relatives seemed very surprised when they told me what fine friends I have. I know I have fine friends, and I also know my mother is amazing, because she welcomes them all and feeds them all and likes them all. Everything came together sweetly today because of her, and that was the best birthday present of all.
I've had a lovely day. It was low key and delightful. For me a day is perfect when I have friends and family round and learn a bunch of new stuff. I stayed in and got to see one in-law, one uncle, two parents, two sisters, three friends and six young people. Tick the friends and family box. A very big tick.
My tall nephew brought in his longbow for me to see. I didn't just see it, I also discovered that (unexpectedly) I could shoot one. We have no idea if I can hit anything, just that my body strength is enough to make it bend sufficently. This was a surprise, as I haven't had much arm strength for years, thanks to the RSI. It just goes to show that the force doesn't come from the arms, or even the shoulders. My tall nephew suggested that one for my height would work well and then we got talking about everything from arrows to how thick targets need to be. I knew the theory of longbows, but the practice is far less intimidating in one way (it's way more manageable than I had thought) and far more in another (it has such force behind it).
My not-nearly-so-tall niece has advanced my education too and I know a bit more about chromosomes and how to understand the work of the human genome project. She's very good at explaining things and the afternoon tea table discussion revolved for a while around men with XXY and women with XXX and men with XX chromosomes. What I particularly loved about this was the discovery that inheritance isn't nearly as stable as it sounded in my high school science class.
I need to find out more about conditions that can turn different traits on and off. My not-nearly-so-tall niece's example was that two generations after a famine, people in a region were shorter. This makes me wonder about the effect of different cultural practices on genetic inheritance. I need to learn more. Much more.
The friends were all especially charming and various relatives seemed very surprised when they told me what fine friends I have. I know I have fine friends, and I also know my mother is amazing, because she welcomes them all and feeds them all and likes them all. Everything came together sweetly today because of her, and that was the best birthday present of all.