Old Dog, New Tricks

This is Tiger Leaping Gorge. I am goiing to mix metaphors -- tigers are, of course grander than old dogs, it's nicer to compare onself to a foolish, over-confident tiger than a mangy old dog. The tiger tried to leap the river which is only barely visible at the bottom {a very early part of the Yantze} -- he didn't make it. An island in the river marks where he fell.

So what am I talking about? Last week I installed MSWord on this Apple computer since the text edit program is very limited - doesn't even number pages. I am not a stranger to Word, it's the program I've used at work for a long time but I've never had to do the formating or learn the meaning of all the icons, etc. It's not so much a WHOLE new thing as an intricacy I have to learn -- and I will gradually as I need to do different functions. I've delayed several days, as is my habit with something new. But I've just written a document that will need serious editing so I'll learn more about cutting and pasting and so on.

New tricks in a way, or being a tiger and thinking I'm fully capable of jumping across that river ... maybe I am. That's to be seen. Once people "of a certain age" could settle into their old familiar ways, fall asleep in the rocking chair and do nothing more challenging than bouncing grand or great-grand children on their knees. That's almost impossible today nor do most of us want to ... there are things to learn, challenges to face, gorges to leap ... it helps if we've learned to swim -- many of use can, in fact, take very good care of ourselve.