Portland trip

I took the train to Portland for Mother's Day weekend. My parents got back from winter in California just a couple of weeks ago. It was a pretty low key weekend for the most part. My nephews didn't come up until Sunday, and my great niece was also only with us on Sunday. She's such a cutie pie. Yesterday we were singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and she knows all the words. She knows all the songs from Frozen too, although mostly she wanted to tell me about the snow monster that doesn't sing but goes "Rowrrrrrr!"

Everybody seems to be doing fine, although my brother has some bad lower back pain, and nobody can tell him what's causing it yet. Between that and my sore right shoulder it seems as though our generation is starting to feel its age. Sometimes lately I've been feeling very strange on that front. Feeling more and more detached from my youth. On the train back from Portland I sat with a young guy coming up from Hollywood who was all full of the mad energy and slang of youth, and I found myself trying to slip into that same mindframe and, despite my tie dyed t-shirt, not being able to get there. All sense of cool and mad-crazy has flown the coop. I just feel tired and frazzled and out of it.

Well, some of that is work, which has been stressful lately. Plus it feels as though I've got about a zillion things on my agenda outside of work. My mind is spinning more than I'd like, trying to work out the priorities. Getting together with the family is always a blast, but part of that is a blast of emotion that just increases the spin. Fasten your seat belts, the rollercoaster is headed into a loop ...