Quick Note ~~

I haven't been around for the last week not because anything is wrong but because I've just been preoccupied getting things in order and ready for Christmas (early as it is). There were some notes on my last entry asking if everything was ok, and yes, you sweethearts, you, all is fine. I plan on making the rounds little by little, day by day, and by this weekend should be caught up with each of you. Getting behind in a blog walk is awful! I miss you, can't wait to catch up, and will see you soon :D

XOXOXO

In The Beginning ~~

I’m passing on this little crazy tidbit because of Beth.  She jogged my memory of my first PC and I knew if I didn’t write about that, I’d forget.

My first PC was 15 years ago, with Windows 95 to start, and back then it was almost $2000 for a bundled package.  I can’t even remember the brand except that it started with either a B or a G.  Watch it be neither.  I placed that order and was so excited I actually had chills.  I counted the days until it arrived and when that day came, oooooo boyyyyy, I felt like I was on top of the world.  I opened all the boxes and there were a lot.  I spread all the parts on the floor and got out the diagram and started putting it all together.  “Hey, not too hard”, I thought.  Then it was ready and I was all smiles.  For a moment I stood back and admired my handiwork and my new found extreme pleasure of knowing that I, too, was going to be a part of this great web of the world. With an excited deep breath, I sat down in my new office chair at my new desk and was completely all a’twitter.  Then it hit me. The smile turned upside down. I squinted. I felt a major panic hit me.  I had no idea how to turn it on and it didn’t say how to do that in the instructions.  Completely dumfounded, I sat there and tried to figure it out.  Nothing, not a clue.  So I picked up the phone and dialed the company and never felt more the fool when I said, “Hello, I know this is probably a silly call, but I just got this computer and it’s ready to go, except that I don’t know how to turn it on. Could you tell me how, please?”  The guy on the other end actually said to me, “Is this a joke? Did Bill put you up to this?”  And then he starts laughing and calls out to Bill.  I could hear them both, and guess who felt like a bigger fool than I did, HA.  So, he told me where that button was (in front of my nose, for heaven’s sake), I pushed it, and the lights came on!  Heaven!  Then, I started pushing keys and shouldn’t have done that. All these pop-ups (I didn’t even know what they were back then) showed on my screen and I started clicking on those, too. The next thing I knew, I had a trillion porn sites grabbing my entire existence!  If I thought I was in a panic before, well that was nothin’ compared to what was happening now. I couldn’t even breathe, I was heart attack bound, and I couldn’t get the darn stuff off my screen as it kept multiplying like crazy.  I dialed the company back.  Oh yeah, had to do it.  This person explained to me how to shut my darn PC off.  Oh, it just gets worse. It wouldn’t shut off by the regular avenue, so I had to push that button again.  The next thing I hear is the person asking me if I have an antivirus program.  A what?  Machines get sick?  Here I am, the first day with a computer, and within 10 minutes I find out that it is now infected with viruses and I have no antivirus program.  I unplugged everything and took the tower into a shop I found in the yellow pages (I still use the same company). At first I thought I’d have to take ALL the parts to them, but they explained it was the tower that is actually a computer.  Off I go and they fixed it by the next day, I brought it home, rehooked everything, and then took a breath and tried again.  THIS time, here’s what happened:

I knew there were great games online and I wanted to play pong, so I did a search, clicked on one of the results, and landed in this strange pong game site.  The game looked like a cave and there was a button that said click here if you want to play. I did. That ball started flying faster than I could even see!  I lost the game to a robot within 10 seconds. All of a sudden, I saw this typed message to me and it asked if I wanted to play. Omg, where am I.  I didn’t know how to answer so I thought (really I did) that someone must be looking at me at that very moment.  Out loud I said, “Sure!”  And then I sat and sat.  The message started again, and it said, “Do you want to play or not”.  Uh oh, talking out loud must not be the answer, so I frantically started looking for a way to communicate.  A message started again, and this time, it said, “I think you must be brand new to computers and don’t know what to do. Do you see the little area under the cave? Click into that line and type an answer, then we can talk”.  It was there! The space to type was there!  My fingers were flying. It turned out that this person was a girl named Kerrie in California and she taught me the game.  We batted that ball back and forth for hours and hours.  She won game after game that day, and at the end of every game she would type, GG.   I couldn’t figure out what that was.  Finally I won 1 game, and again she typed GG with an exclamation point behind it.  I was so thrilled that I won and so positive that she was good naturedly laughing about the whole thing, that I thought GG must mean “giggling”!  I typed GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG across the whole bloody screen.  Who knew it meant Good Game?  Can you even imagine later on when someone would type, “gg, p”.  I certainly had a lot to learn.  Oh, and if you’ve never played a team game online, “gg, p” means “good game, partner”.  It did NOT mean “good game and now you can take a break and go pee”.

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This is for Carole (Ramblingon) just because I thought it was cute of Sam and Lucy and Carole’s Miss Kitt has been so beautifully hatted:

                                            

And so, I am leaving you now to take a well deserved long nap.  I spent the entire night and today installing a gazillion batteries and setting up the front porch and the entire downstairs and half of the upstairs.  I am pooped.  GG all 

XOXOXO

I’m Seeing Red ~~

Just as I think I have a handle on making a header, I fall apart.  Now’s it’s the background that’s driving me crazy and I’m sure I’m going to do change after change.  It’s all so red now that if a bull saw it, he’d charge the screen.  Well, this is a work in progress and I’ll fix it by Christmas (maybe).

I’ve decided to do a little Christmas decorating this year, which is a step up in my mood with Mom not here anymore.  Better little steps than no steps at all, right?  Anyway, I’ve fallen totally in love with all these new gizmos of decor that do not have to be plugged in. No more cords!  The first purchase was window candles, then I went wild over swags, and then over string lights.  I have plans for all of it, but I never thought at all about the batteries until this morning as I was walking from room to room and counting first the windows for the candles – 20 windows to deck and that’s 2-AA’s in each.  40 batteries.  Then the swags, as I gulped at the thought of my checkbook dwindling, at 4 swags using 3-C’s, so that’s 12-C batteries.  Then on to the string lights which use 3-D’s.  I’m only using 2 of those strings on some plants in the living room, so that 6-D’s to buy.  I’ll bet these batteries end up more expensive than the amount of increase I would have seen in the electric bill with cords!  But still, any woman will tell you that all those cords twisting around everything is enough to make you want to pull the plug on the whole house.  Not men, though. They don’t care if cords are swinging through the air, hanging from the ceiling, and draped over every piece of furniture in the room.  I take that back. Don’t drape cords over the favorite chair OR the remote.  There, I feel better. No cords.

Here’s what the swags look like. No batteries yet, so none are lit with those little clear lights. Still, you get the idea.  And one of these photos also shows my mistletoe in crystal.  Yeah, sure, nobody will be under it except for 2 fur balls and myself but I like it and when the light hits all those facets, it’s terrific. Please DO click to enlarge:

 

 

 

 

Now, niftiest thing about these swags, candles, and string lights, is that they are programmable. YES!  You set the time you want them on and the time you want them to turn off.  I have been told by my neighbor (who has the same) that ONE set of batteries in each will last even more than the entire Christmas season.  See? I just gave myself another reason of why I’m going to buy out the store in batteries.  It’s all worth it!

Last, but not least, I am going to treat Beth, yes, our Beth in Illinois, bless her heart, to a horrible, awful vid I made for her last night, with none other than Lucy, the talking cat.  Hey, I promised Lucy so what else can I do?  Beth, FORGIVE MEEEE!  (As bad as this is, you have to agree that you can tell Lucy is actually paying attention)

                                           

 

XOXOXO

Lettuce Alone (pardon the pun) ~~

The stories about my mother could fill a book, and here’s a short one for today, but this one involves one of my dear pets. His name was Rocky, and he was an English parakeet.  The English variety is much larger than the American, and not that the American is any slouch in smartness, but the English is astoundingly bright. First, before I get into the story, let me show you the difference in size of these 2 birds. and the blue one is only to show the color of my Rocky who was a brilliant turquoise:

                                                

I spent many a month working on Rocky’s vocabulary and his understanding of everything in the household.  That first little sentence of, “Pretty birdddd”, took 6 months and sounded like a cross between a human voice and a whistle. But when Rocky realized that he’d actually spoken, well, that boy started a race on words and sentences that couldn’t be matched.  Every single day, there were more and more complete sentences, demands, questions, kisses, and then the culmination of his talent, imitations.  He could imitate me, my father, or my mother perfectly, and this is where the story begins.

Rocky was always allowed the run, or should I say fly, of the house. He loved my Cocker Spaniel, Winnie, and my big yellow cat, who never, ever tried to hurt him. One day, Rocky was zipping around the house as usual when he saw Mom in the kitchen washing dishes. He landed on a chair at the kitchen table which was directly behind Mom and so she couldn’t see him and had no idea he was even there.  So Mom was washing, rinsing, and humming a tune, when all of a sudden this voice said in a polite way, “I want some lettuce”.  Without missing a beat, Mom replied, “I’m sorry, TC (my dad’s name), but my hands are all wet. I’ll get it in a few minutes”.  With that, the voice gets more belligerent and says louder, “I SAID I want some lettuce!”.  My mother blew a gasket at the tone of voice and said very loudly back, “And I said I’d get it later. If you want it so much now, then get it yourself! Gosh!”  The next sound we heard was the sound of a bird laughing like crazy in my father’s voice. Mom was now even more put out and starts a sentence, “What in the world is the matter……” as she turns to see none other than my beloved Rocky bobbing his head up and down in such self satisfaction.  My father and I heard the entire conversation from the living room and it took everything we had not to make a sound and double over in convulsive laughter.  We always said that Rocky was one smart cookie of a bird and really knew the value of a good joke.  I should have put him on stage in Vegas.

Later, gators  XOXOXO