Streamlined Setup

Holy expediency Batman!

I purchased a new laptop today because, well - it was necessary. My old laptop had slowed to the point where I could fix a cup of tea while I waited for a web page to load.

I was dreading the computer setup - you know, load Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Install the driver for my printer. On and on and on.

What a surprise when I discovered Microsoft Office was preloaded and I needed only to type in the authentication key for the hard disk I owned.

But the biggest amazement was setting up the printer.

I plugged the data cord into the USB port and prepared to put the installation CD into the computer. Before I could press the button to open the CD player a message appeared on the computer screen: Loading Device Driver

Surely the next message would be: Driver not found, please install software

But no, the message turned out to be: Samsung ML-2510 now ready to use.

Could it really be that in less than 2 minutes the printer was ready to go?

I opened Word that I had so easily authenticated moments ago, typed a quick sentence, and sent the one line document to the printer.

...and it printed!!

In less than an hour from the opening of the box my new computer was fully functional. Amazing!

Inverted Cat

I will probably not be able to do the event justice but I am compelled to try.

While our cats are tolerant of the dog Media Girl recently introduced to the family, they are frequently overwhelmed by the dog's exuberance. A seven pound cat doesn't fare well against a playfully prancing twenty-five pound canine.

So our cats have taken to slinking cautiously through the house like lions stalking prey. Only it's not prey they're looking for but a clear shot to the food bowl or pet door.

Cinnamon, one of our cats, was on just such a cautious approach to her food bowl when the dog rounded the corner at slightly less than eighty miles an hour.

Cinnamon instinctively leapt into the air, but with forward motion blocked by the bulldozing dog it was Cinnamon's back legs that left the ground first. Her front legs left the carpet a nano- second later and for an instant she appeared to be hanging by her tail, expanded to maximum fluff, from an invisible sky hook.

Never before can I remember having seen a cat leave the ground backward. I laughed until tears pooled in my eyes.

Annoyances and Attitudes

I was back at the auto repair shop yet again today. February has been a brutal month for car repairs with dollar totals well into the four digit range.

The problem today was relatively minor - but annoying. Ever since we had a new set of tires put on our Honda Civic, the tire pressure warning light on the instrument panel has remained constantly illuminated. Today was the tire center's second attempt at correcting the problem - and still the issue remains unresolved.

It's not that I'm concerned about the tire pressure. I started driving in the pre-computer age when low pressure alerts came in the form of physical inspections or sluggish steering response. It's that dagblasted warning light constantly in my line of vision that has my nerves on edge.

Equally irritating to me is that this annoyance is just another example of the carelessness that has become rampant in American business. Not carelessness as in oops I made a mistake, although that certainly applies in this situation, but a care less attitude. An implied shoulder shrug that says we did what we could, sorry for your luck.

What ever happened to wanting to give your best to everything you did? Yes, I know there are still those dedicated kind of folks out there. But these days it's almost a surprise to encounter a can do attitude.

Which doesn't say much for the majority of our encounters.

Patient Exasperation

My mind is a little groggy tonight so here's a short meditation

To truly find patience one must first endure exasperation.

Tabby Monarch

We have two tabby cats. One of the two has always sported a white blaze on her chest. I've noticed the blaze has grown significantly larger of late.

Well, I guess it's not so much the blaze has expanded but that the surrounding fur has faded from orange to white.

When the cat sits upright and looks at me head on she appears to be wearing the robes of an English noble (or the ghost of Christmas Present from the movie Scrooge). A thick band of white tucks up into the base of her neck, then drops vertically down the center of her chest. The only things missing are the over generous sleeves cuffed by rings of white fur.

The cat looks more regal, aloof, and - tired - these days. Perhaps I'm just projecting my own snow weariness onto the cat but I suspect not. The fading hues of orange and the abundance of silver-white fur suggests the cat is moving into her golden years.

For Media Girl's sake I hope those golden years prove to be lengthy.

White Volcano

It seems Motivated Mom, Media Girl, and I managed to set Mother Nature straight with our night of Caribbean celebration.

Temperatures have pushed into the low 40s the past couple days and the mountains of snow are shrinking faster than I had dared hope.

I noticed one monument to snow that I expect will be around for quite sometime however. I spotted it the other day in the front yard of a home in a nearby development - a conical mountain of snow whose peak reached higher than the eaves of the house. It looks like a stark white volcano actually. Approximately twelve feet in diameter at it's base the monolith tapers to little more than a foot wide at the top of it's fourteen foot rise.

I figure it's a safe assumption there are more than two children living in the house fronted by the white volcano. With schools having been closed for nearly two weeks due to the record snowfall I imagine the desperately resourceful mother sent her brood outside with instructions to see if they could build a mountain of snow to reach the heavens.

And I bet the mother was praying to heaven that her children would achieve the goal she had set them.

Waiting Time

I've never been good at waiting. Well, I guess I should clarify that. I've never been good at waiting when the timetable is an unknown.

Sitting on a mountain top or beach, waiting for sunrise or sunset, I can sit contentedly for hours on end. I know what it is I'm waiting for and when it will occur. There is nothing to do but sit, relax, and wait.

But put me in a waiting area and all bets are off.

I'm not talking waiting rooms in doctor offices where I know an appointment will take place somewhere within eighty minutes of the scheduled time. I'm referring to waiting areas in airports, car repair facilities, and government offices.

When I have no idea how long it will take for my number to be called, for a car repair to be finished, or for a delayed plane to arrive, I lose my ability to sit patiently or to focus on a book.

I spent over eight hours in waiting areas this past week. I always had a book with me, but at the end of the week I had gained only forty pages. I read those same forty pages over and over again - never able to retain the plot from one reading to the next. Why? I suppose it was because I spent too much time worrying that the hands of the clock on the wall were actually moving backward whenever I wasn't focused on the clock.

What other explanation than reverse time could account for the numbness in my legs, the ache in my shoulders, and the kink in my neck? It could only be that what I took to be fifteen minutes of waiting had actually been two hours, the minute hand advancing only one minute for every eight it moved backward.

This week has left me convinced backward time is a real phenomena unique to waiting areas.

Celebrating Caribbean

We are celebrating the Caribbean in our house tonight. It is a family tradition that began nearly sixteen years ago. The tradition started during a February when snow had kept us penned inside for so long that we were on the verge of becoming suicidal.

For tonight the firewood has been cleared from the hearth, replaced by seashells and palm fronds. The thermostat has been pushed up to 79 degrees and an oscillating fan is on standby if needed.

The coffee table is gone from the middle of the family room floor. In its place three beach chairs are positioned in a semicircle around a blue, red, and yellow striped umbrella.The beach chairs have been carefully arranged for optimum viewing of the television so that we can enjoy the DVD of Caribbean beaches. As for the umbrella - well, that's to protect us from the ultraviolet rays being emitted by the sunlamp hanging high on one wall of the family room.

In a nearby room, just far enough away that the sounds might be coming from a beach side bar, a mix of Reggae and steel drum music is playing.

Of course evening beach side music can mean only one thing - happy hour. While we blend frozen strawberry daiquiris we will be preparing a spicy Caribbean cuisine of shrimp and fish.

We'll just have to hope no one comes to the front door while we we're celebrating. It would really take much too long to explain the bathing suits and the smell of suntan lotion.

House Hunting

The internet headline caught my eye - Would You House Hunt In A Snowstorm?

If it snows any more I'll be hunting for MY OWN house. With snow drifts up to the windowsills and icicles the length of swords hanging from the eaves, there is little of my house left to see.

The bushes and trees surrounding my home remain either bent in half or flattened completely. After three weeks buried beneath hundreds of pounds of snow, they may never recover.

Motivated Mom and I were thrilled to discover a small patch of visible grass near the edge of our driveway yesterday. With any luck the entire lawn will be visible by July - and the house itself soon after.

Feeling Fishy

Now I know how a fish feels.

I arrived home this afternoon to find somewhere near eighty seagulls perched across mounds of plowed snow.

The gulls raised a real ruckus when I got out of my my car. The cries of gulls are not uncommon in my area so I paid little attention until, turning with arms full of groceries, I discovered myself standing dead in the center of a ring of birds.

Surprised but not startled, I headed up the drive. En mass the gulls took flight - and all settled on the roof of my house, nearly obliterating the gray shingles.

Silently promising to ring the neck of any bird that pooped over the edge of the rain gutter, I went inside, deposited my groceries, then headed back out for the next load of bags.

The gulls left the roof, reassembled on the driveway, then returned to the roof. This migration continued until I finished emptying the car.

By the final trip I was beginning to feel as though the gulls were eying me in much the same way I had been been scrutinizing the specials on the store shelves just a short time earlier.

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds came to mind and I was glad to reach the completion of my chore.

Shrove Tuesday

When I was growing up our family always had pancakes for dinner on Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent.

When I started a family of my own, pancakes were a hit and miss thing on Shrove Tuesday. I think pancakes became sporadic because we lived in Pennsylvania Dutch country for quite a few years and were blitzed by the local tradition of eating fasnachts on Shrove Tuesday.

Fasnachts are little balls of greasy deep fried potato flour sometimes served just as their greasy selves and sometimes dipped in sugar. The sugar is a vain attempt to camouflage the grease. I tried both a plain and sugared faschnact once and determined them to be equally horrendous. So far as I could see, their only redeeming value was that I wanted to begin fasting after eating them.

But I have gone astray and need to get back to pancakes. As I consumed my delightful syrup coated cakes at dinner tonight I pondered the relationship between pancakes and Shrove Tuesday. So once dinner was done I headed directly for that wealth of information - Wikepedia - and discovered shrove is the past tense of shrive. The definition of shrive is to seek absolution for one's sins.

Since we good folks have apparently always had a plethora of sins and have always known we weren't going to escape fasting, we learned to load our bellies with rich and filling foods on Shrove Tuesday.

So now I understand the stack of pancakes, the bottle of maple syrup, the bacon, and the hash browns. But faschnats - they will always remain a mystery.

Postponed

The sign said it all: All Birthday Celebrations Postponed Until Further Notice

There is a community gathering hall in a neighboring town that is frequently rented out for large gatherings and celebrations. It is commonplace for the sign to bear announcements of birthdays and weddings.

Today the sign was barely visible about four foot high piles of once-snow that that had become solid ice. The drive to the gathering hall lay on the far side of that ice barrier. Obviously no one wanted to undertake the task of chiseling through the barrier.

Yet another indication of the near ghost town atmosphere hanging over the community.

Supermarket shelves have as many empty slots as full, inventories reduced from economic necessity and panic buying now depleted by postponed shipments of replacement goods.

Tilted trash cans and toppled trash bags line the roadways - trash collection postponed until roads were safely passable now postponed still longer by the President's Day holiday.

Yes, the nearly buried sign said it all.... postponed.

Seeing What You Need

Sometimes it's important to see only what you want to see.

This morning I wakened to the soft glow of sunlight seeping between the slats of the venetian blinds. The angle of the sun cast bars of light across the wall adjacent to the windows, illuminating a framed picture of a beach scene.

I allowed myself the luxury of believing I had wakened to a June morning. The kind of summer morning where the promise of bright sun and warm breezes dispels any desire to linger in bed. The kind of summer morning spent breakfasting on the porch with a bagel and cup of tea, the sun forcing my eyes into a squint as I watch the birds probing the ground for breakfast of their own.

Managing to hold onto the summer mentality through the first part of my morning routine, I grew excited by the prospect of the coming weekend.

We're having Caribbean night in our family room later this week. A ritual we are resurrecting from a time when we lived in Pennsylvania. A time when perpetually snowy weather drove us to the brink of despair.

Ahh... I can hear the steel drum music now.

Simple Pleasures

Not having to be at work today and finding myself without a car, I have been rediscovering the simple pleasures in life.

With bright afternoon sun streaming in through the window of my home office, I positioned my desk chair next to the window, propped my feet on the top of my desk, closed my eyes, and basked in the warm light.

When a growling deep in my stomach woke me from my nap, I had the good fortune of finding an unopened jar of peanut butter in the pantry. There are few things better than the very first scoop from a new jar of peanut butter.

A good peanut butter requires either a slice of rye toast or a newly opened sleeve of crackers as an accompaniment. I opted for the crip crackers - along with a cup of hot herbal tea.

My stomach satisfied and my blog entry for the day posted, the sunshine is once again calling my name. So I'll just prop my feet back up on my desk, lean back in my chair, and let the screeching of the seagulls outside my window carry me into daydreams of mid summer.

Phone Injustice

There is no justice in the world.

Just when I no longer had to shovel snow from the lawn for the dog, I had to shovel a swath across the front yard so the phone repairman could get to the data box on the side of the house.

All during the recent blizzards I had worked hard at keeping the driveway clear. Proof of my diligence is the five foot mound of snow running along either edge of the drive - a mound which I had to shovel through today as part of providing access for the repairman.

Now that I think about it, perhaps the chore of breaking through the wall of snow and slicing through the three foot drifts in the front yard was unnecessary.

I had already decided that if snow appeared in the forecast one more time this season I was going to purchase a one way ticket to the Caribbean.

Dog Lesson

Life lesson number 1,376,046.

Do not bring a new puppy into your household just before record breaking snowfalls.

Had these blizzards hit last year I could have arrived home from work, set a fire blazing in the fireplace, and forgotten about the outside world until morning.

Not so with a puppy still learning to master its bladder.

Even more not so with a puppy who loves to frolic in the snow.

It seems I've been outdoors more often in the past week than in the previous two months.

At least now the dog will pee in the snow. After the first snowfall, having just learned that the grass was the place to do her business, the puppy was in mental crisis. She would indicate a need to go out, race through the door, and then pace anxiously in search of green. I ended up having to shovel a section of lawn clear of snow to avoid the dog having a nervous breakdown.

Thankfully green is no longer required for bathroom trips and I no longer have to shovel the lawn in addition to the driveway. Anyplace outside (including the deck) is now considered an acceptable place to squat - because everything beyond the door to the house is the same uniform white.

Which means there is another training challenge waiting in the wings. Teaching the dog that the deck is no longer an acceptable pit stop location once the outside world returns to normal.

Media 18

Media Girl turned 18 today - and she's seriously bummin'

Made prisoner in the house for the past 72 hours compliments of the weekend blizzard, she was unable to spend her momentous day surrounded by friends.

Hoping for at least a brief opportunity to get out of the house, Media Girl decided to go sledding on the snow covered dunes at the beach.

.... Which meant traversing roads that are still ice and snow covered. Alas our four wheel drive vehicle picked today to give up the ghost and Media Girl watched her ticket to freedom ride off into the sunset on the the back end of a tow truck.

All of which leaves Media Girl stuck at home with her parents as still another storm begins to dump snow on the area.

Not an auspicious way to celebrate an 18th year milestone

Snow & Email

Okay, so maybe the groundhog DID see his shadow - and maybe we are in for six more weeks of abysmal weather.

I shoveled the driveway three times Saturday, drove to work Sunday in a world that made me think of nuclear winter, and have been doing still more shoveling after work the past couple days.

I've had no time to sit down at my computer until now - and I made a discovery.

E-mails accumulate almost as fast as snow during a blizzard. When I opened my mailbox today and saw 57 new messages I nearly deleted the lot of them.

I caught myself just before hitting the delete key. There might be some valuable info buried in those messages.

So, just as I'm doing with the 19" of snow surrounding my house, I'll keep chipping away at the mail until I get to the bottom of it.

Positive Rain

Okay, enough already, this isn't funny any more.

In the past three weeks our area has dealt with more snow than the region usually experiences in five years. Now there is a blizzard warning posted for the next two days. Up to eighteen inches of snow with high winds.

Yesterday afternoon the temperatures had moderated enough that I was able to sit on the deck and bask in the sun for an hour. I was certain the worst of the unusual weather was in the past.

Then today at work customers started talking about the approaching storm. I wanted to put my fingers in my ears and shout nah, nah, nah, nah, I can't hear you.

There was no drowning out the din in the grocery store. When I stepped through the sliding glass doors I was hit by a wall of sound that rivaled the echoing roar heard in a sports stadium.

Did you hear we're getting more snow. Oh, I love snow. I'm sick to death of the stuff. We're supposed to have a foot. We're supposed to have two feet. They're calling for three feet and power outages. I need to make sure we're stocked up. Can't be caught without the necessities. It'll be a week before I'll be able to get out again. Conversations and predictions tumbled together creating an avalanche of conjecture.

I went home, put my snow shovel away, and placed my umbrella by the door. The power of positive thinking will turn this into nothing more than a rain event - I'm certain of it.

Threes

It seems it's always bad or sad news that comes in threes - never good news.

Celebrity deaths are a classic example. They come in threes so frequently that whenever we hear of the passing of a celebrity Motivated Mom and I immediately wonder aloud who the next two will be. Even friends call to ask if we've heard the news and to voice their certainty that two more announcements will soon follow.

This week it's been bad news of another kind that arrived in threes. Rather than having far reaching impact, the news was immediate to our family. All three of our vehicles needed some kind of unscheduled repair. Motivated Mom's car needed bodywork and a new windshield. Of the two vehicles that Media Girl and I share, one needed brake repair and the other a new set of tires.

The total figure for the combined maintenance is not a number that generates warm fuzzies.

I could really use a good news trifecta right now. Something along the lines of winning the powerball and the publishers clearing house sweepstakes on the same day that I learn my IRA investments have suddenly tripled in value.

Of course that's not going to happen. Good news doesn't come in threes.

I wonder why that is.

False Shadow

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and the northern hemisphere is destined to be subjected to another six weeks of abysmal weather. So say those who gathered in the Pennsylvania wilds this morning.

I take issue with the furry critter's prognostication interpreters. I contend that the groundhog saw his shadow only because of human intervention.

With dozens of reporters and cameramen vying for optimum viewing position, the opening to Phil's den was bathed in more megawatts of artificial light than a runway at Philadelphia International Airport. How could the poor animal help but see his shadow in those conditions?

I submit that had the portable generators been disrupted, had the miles of power cables carried nothing more than the sound of vinyl casing contracting in the eighteen degree weather, had the high intensity bulbs been nothing but empty glass shells, Punxsutawney Phil would have been hard pressed to see the nose on the end of his face much less his shadow.

It is my belief that Phil's emergence from his cozy home should be a for your eyes only event. It's the only way to maintain the integrity of the prognostication. The event should be open to reporters only (no cameramen) armed with nothing but pencils and steno pads.

I venture to say that had those regulations been in place today, we would be preparing for the early arrival of warmer temperatures.

Football Fun

Something occurred to me while I was watching the pro bowl game Sunday night. The players were all enjoying themselves - and not worrying about disabling injuries.

Isn't that the way it should be all the time? Shouldn't football players be able to focus on performing to the best of their abilities without worrying about a severed spinal cord?

Okay, I accept that football is a physical game. I accept the core concept of the game - tackling the guy with the ball - means people are prone to be injured. But it seems to me there should be a way for injuries to be limited to incidental sprains and bruises.

The pro bowl was a high scoring game built on exciting marches up an down the field. Maybe fans could enjoy a greater number of fast paced challenges if the chances of serious injuries were reduced.