April 13 (I think)
Cox is down. Therefore the fake landline is down. And therefore (I guess…) for reasons unknown my computer can’t connect to the Internet.
Actually, if my vague understanding of these techno-issues is sorta correct, the “land line” is no longer a real land line, but just another ethereal connection to the wispy Internet. Meaning, therefore, that when the Web goes down, I can’t make a call out of the house for love nor money.
911? Ay señora! Not a faawwckeeng chance!
I could in theory use the iPhone my son gave me to do that…if I could figure out how. Unfortunately, when he gave me the phone, he refused to teach me how to use it. The plague came up right at that time, and so the iPhone classes up at the local senior citizens’ center were closed. And no, they’ve never reinstated those classes.
Yes, I did try taking a class at the Apple store. They plopped a half-dozen little old ladies – myself included – in the middle of the sales floor and set some poor woman in front of us to lecture us on how to work the damn things. You couldn’t hear her talking for love nor money…and no, I do NOT have a hearing problem.
Hmmmm…. Looks like we may be up again. Let’s try copying and pasting this over to a FaM post…
Grrrrrrrrrr!
Nope. It was up for a few minutes – seconds? – and is now nonfunctional again.
Hmmmmmm…. This thing is 95% charged. Let’s try hauling it down to the AJ’s… order up an iced coffee, park in the outdoor café….and try to see if it’ll work down there.
****
Nope. Decided I didn’t wanna drive through the afternoon rush-hour traffic. Ugh!
The back porch, despite its crying need for a clean-up job, is a lot more pleasant than AJ’s front patio. By far.
Ohhhh how I miss The Little Guy. 😀 That’s what SDXB used to call the proprietor of the coffeeshop we used to habituate, across the parking lot from the Walmart up on Gangbanger’s Way.
The backyard is no longer as pleasant for just hangin’ out as it used to be.
The kids — new(ish) inhabitants of my (former) neighbor Sally’s house — either haven’t the money or haven’t the sense to fix their roof-top air conditioner NOW, before it craps out. From the racket it’s making, it sounds like that eventuality will occur sooner than later. Rattle rattle rattle groan GASP.
***
And speaking of rackets (real and metaphorical), there’s the Cop Copter, flying around in circles directly to the south of us. C’mon, guys…kindly don’t chase the boys up in our direction…
Nope: looks like they’re going away.
M’Jiito and I get into an argument every time we try to have a conversation. That’s not helping things.
***
In other sylvan realms, HOLY GOD am I glad I no longer live in Saudi Arabia!
We knew that sooner or later the hatred between the Arabs and the Jews would come to this (and worse: just you watch!). Outside of camp, on the way to Dhahran you’d pass a big billboard that read AMERICANS GO HOME! In Arabic, so much of the dependents didn’t really register it.
What a horrible place for a foreigner to reside. We should, all of us, exit stage right and let the Arabs figure out for themselves how to extract their berjillions of gallons of oil, how to build refineries and turn it into salable stuff, how to build and operate ocean-going tankers to send it off to buyers.
More to the point: We need to free ourselves of dependence on people who hate us.
Solar power, folks. That’s what’s needed.
Far, far more than the average American realizes.
Most people seem to register that a functioning solar power grid would free America from a lot of problems, present and future. What they don’t seem to recognize is how soon we need to get that functioning and how urgently we need it.
Like…right now!
Go and do what you feel in your heart is the right thing to do. If you wish to be interred with your parents in a completely different spot than your dad’s second wife, then go and do it! Get it organized, spend the money and then relax. May I gently suggest that you do not argue with your son. He is a man and living his own life and you have to let go. Just nod in agreement, bite your tongue and be supportive of him. Our children do not need our input unless they ask for it, even though it’s a hard pill to swallow. Arguments with our children are pointless. Leave him with nice memories of you!
Yeah, I’m afraid you’re right. Just had another quarrel; we hung up on each other. I can’t stand this stuff anymore!!!
And, without a doubt, neither can he.
How you leave a person without arguing when you can’t have a conversation that devolves into a quarrel: that escapes me. {sigh}
Guess it’s time to exit, stage left.
Ask yourself, what’s triggering these arguments? If it’s something your son is saying/doing, just ignore it and change the subject. If it’s something you’re saying/doing, stop it LOL Just disengage. I raised two sons and they were both headstrong (still are) BUT I learned to defer to them. I started to ask their opinions on everything with which I needed help and believe me, that wasn’t easy. Always being the parent, we think we know best but I think it’s important to recognize that our children want to be treated by us the way we wished to be treated by our own parents. And that is, to be respected enough to live their own lives and figure out their own problems. My sons didn’t want my input unless they asked for it and I could always tell I was annoying them when the tone of the conversation started to veer off course. I only offer encouragement these days and when something happens in life (that doesn’t involve me) that I know has angered them, I don’t even mention it unless they do. It takes practice! It’s so hard to stop worrying about our children but I somehow learned to start having faith in their abilities and let it go. It has been a relief to drop their lives in their laps to be honest!
I thought we, the U.S.A., learned our lesson about being too dependent on oil producing countries waaay back in the 70’s. I never did understand why we didn’t concentrate on alternative sources of energy going forward. Maybe politics (money) has something to do with it?