Housekeeping

I dusted upstairs and down tonight, and then the power went off for almost 3 hours. (A squirrel had done something at a substation a couple miles from here.) So I had instant coffee and bread with peanut butter for supper.

 

When I got my electricity back, I read a bunch of blogs, and even managed (after several attempts) to upload a new Multiply profile picture.

 

Then I figured out how to fix my notification settings over on Facebook. (They have been awry since the last Facebook "upgrade" a few weeks ago ...)

Then I screwed something up on Facebook and so sent my daughter-in-law a message asking for help on that.

Then I cleaned out my Yahoo inbox, which had gotten out of hand in the past 24 hours.

And now I have written a blog.

Random Thoughts

Well, it is Purim.  This is a fact I discovered on my Yahoo home page.  Purim is number 8 at the moment in Yahoo's category called "Trending Now."  Number 1 is Chile Earthquake.  Number 2 is Tsunami.  Purim is a Jewish festival, having to do with the Biblical book of Esther.  That is my first random thought.

The second random thought is that nowadays I have to watch my typing more than what I used to.  In days gone by, my fingers knew if they had made a typographical error.  Nowadays I have to use my eyes.  Why this is, I do not know.  I began to notice this new deficiency after Scooter died.  What the one has to do with the other, I cannot guess.

The third is that I have "1 Friend Online" ... and by that I mean on Multiply.  If I were to flip over to my MySpace page I would likely find a friend or two online there also.  And on Facebook it would not surprise me to find quite a few still online at this late hour (the time being 1:05 a.m. Eastern Standard).

Hmmm, I need a 4th Random Thought.  This is not randomly thought about - I am constantly aware of this fact - I do not communicate so very well verbally anymore.  I can often not think of a thing to say to anybody.  My random thoughts are so empty (if empty is, indeed, the proper word) that I am at a loss for much beyond hello.  This phenomena is also since my Scooter died.

Nevertheless: most people do not notice, because I have always been relatively quiet, socially.  And furthermore, I am a relatively high-functioning airhead.  At the moment my verbosity is being enhanced by 2 or 3 ounces of Mogen David Concord Wine (Kosher, alcohol 11% by volume ... oh my, I am such a lush!)  Said wine is intended to put me to sleep, and make me quit thinking about Scott's funeral bill. And yet the thing that I had to write myself a note about, so that I will not FORGET is to tell the funeral home (either voluntarily, or only if they call again ... depending on which thing I later decide would be most appropriate) that SOMEBODY killed Scott with a motor vehicle and that when the police figure out WHO, their auto insurance should pay Scott's final expenses.  (Did you know it costs over $4,000 to drive a hearse 50 miles to pick up a body and then deliver it to a donated grave?)  The funeral was supposed to be billed to Scott's estate.  I am not the executor of Scott's estate.  I was Scott's estranged adoptive mother at the time of his death.  And I am a compliant person.  The medical examiner told me I had to tell them what to do with Scott's body.  My pastor worked something out with a local funeral home.  Scott's ex-girlfriend was going to handle his estate.  She absconded or something.  Sigh.  If you want to know the truth, I was expecting a living prodigal son to come home and say, "Mom! I've missed you!"  Death was never my honest expectation.  Sigh.

Random thought 5: youngest son told me tonight to give $33 from him to church for his tithe this week.  So I went to mybank.com to transfer $33 from his account to mine, and dang if mybank didn't insist this time that I fill out their "enhanced security questions."

And that is something I have ALWAYS been incompetent at doing.  Online security questions always want to know your favorite this or that.  I have never, to my knowledge, had favorite this or thats!  So first I have to try to figure out what a reasonable answer would be, and then I have to worry forever that I will not remember what my answer was.  So of course I have to write down my answers.  And then, of course, I will need to remember where I put the list of answers.  For which if I were truly to act in character I would make a file entitled "Answers to Security Questions," which, of course, defeats the purpose of security questions.

And I feel inept, when really I am not inept in the slightest; yet I wonder if anybody else on earth finds answering simple security questions challenging.

I recall at a job once-upon-a-time, my boss wanted to hand out plastic bracelets to put your office key on.  She came to me, not telling me her true purpose, but only said, "Rani, what is your favorite color?"  (Holy crap!!!! I DON'T KNOW!)  "Favorite color for WHAT?" I said.

Back when security questions amounted to "What is your mother's maiden name," I was challenged even by that question.  My mother's father died when she was 3.  So she has gone by 2 last names, both of which I know about.  And I have answered that question 2 different ways over the years.

And as to what color was my first car (this year's security question number 2 of 3) well, it had an exotic name (which I can remember, even 30 years after the fact) and of course it has a generic color name.  I gave the generic color name as my reply to the bank's security question.  Will I be sure to remember that someday (say in 2525) when my bank doubts my true identity?  Probably not.  I will have to answer, "Uh, it is either 'exotic-name' or 'plain vanilla name.' "

The only security question I knew the definitive answer to was "In what year did you meet your significant other?"  At last! A question that requires knowledge of a FACT, not an opinion!  I KNEW the answer to that one!  (But then, so does everybody else who actually knows me, I think.  Well, hopefully, those who would wish to steal my airheaded identity are people who do NOT know me.)

I should probably rephrase the airheaded descriptor.  People do not generally consider me airheaded.  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being airhead and 10 being geek, I am probably scored by those who know me as 11.

What I am, according to my husband, is, well, literal.  (Is that a fault?  I try to say what I mean, and I anticipate others doing so as well.  Except for when I am trying to tease somewhat, because people like to tease somewhat, and even I can do so once a month or so.  Well maybe it is only 4 times a year.  But hey! I can make people laugh with my wee jokes.  4 times a year, anyway.)

Random thought #6:  The Mogen David is working!  I think that I shall go to sleep if I try again now.

Random thought #7:  With only 2 friends online, it is not likely I will get much feedback from my random thoughts tonight.  Oh well.  It is Purim.  There's an awful lot of grace in Purim, even though Esther never mentions God.  Funny how that works, eh?  Oh, BTW, the photo attached to this blog is Scooter, in his teens.  When he was still my son.  He left home to go to his homecoming dance when he was a junior in high school, and never did come home until he died, at the age of 31.  Prodigals, beware.

Writer's Forum Find Your Muse #9 'Language Barrier'

"Lost in the Scenery"

Drat!  Now this is EXACTLY why I won't let myself imagine in color:  Because I ALWAYS get lost in the scenery if I do.  I have absolutely no sense of time.  I am "directionally challenged" in my home town.  So what am I gonna do now?  Just HAD TO gaze into that painting, didn't you, girl?

I'm in Rome.  I was in the Sistine Chapel with a tour group.  Why did I let Joyce talk me into coming on this tour?  I NEVER go on tours.  Joyce is so dang visual.  Joyce is so into experiences.  Joyce is so gregarious.  Yeah, and Joyce is off with the rest of the tour, because she can see things and remain connected to reality.  Not me, though.  Oh no.

In the sixties they started calling this phenomena "tripping out."  Mom and Dad just called it "day dreaming."  "Earth to Rani," is what my sister Vickie would say.  Yeah, well, earth (or the part of it I'm familiar with) just walked away and boarded the bus without me.  Yeah, I don't just get lost in the scenery in my imagination.  Oh no, I'm more lost than that.   I am a wall flower.  Absolutely forgettable.  I am so quiet, nobody notices me.

Yeah, they probably said "last call" or something.  But I was reading Michelangelo's mind.  I was living in his world.  So now how do I get back to my hotel before they all head back to America without me, for crying out loud?

"He is a foreign man.  He is surrounded by the sound, sound.  Angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity.  I said hey, hallelujah!"  Paul Simon.  I love Paul Simon.  What would Paul Simon do?  He travels all over creation, and he's a poet.  THINK, Rani!

I need to ask somebody how to get back there.  NO!  I need to beg somebody to GUIDE me back there.  Or I need a map.  In English.  Okay, now what am I going to do.  Think!  Think!

Hello ... does anyone here speak English?  No.  Well how about this one then, Parlez-vous Francais? 

Yeah, like that will help if somebody says, "Oui, je parle francais."

When I was foster-mom to Than and his English wasn't so good, I tried to remember my French, because he'd told me he'd learned French in school in VietNam.  But my schoolgirl French and his schoolboy French didn't sound the same, so THAT didn't work.  I had wanted to impress upon him some concept, and I just could not find the English words he knew to do it. 

Oh!  I remember!  Finally I found something along those lines in my Bible, and then copied the same chapter and verse out of HIS Vietnamese Bible.  I don't remember if that worked, though. 

But what the heck!

Bibles, Bibles, this is a CHAPEL for crying out loud.  Do they have any Bibles here in Italian?  More importantly than that, is there ANY dang verse in the Bible that says, "I am from America and I am lost.  I do not even remember the name of my hotel, let alone the street it is on."  Obviously THAT is not in the Bible.  So pointing to a verse in an Italian Bible and using that to express myself is NOT going to help me out of this situation.

Yeah, well, quit thinking about that.

Universal language.  Music is the universal language.  Yeah, but not all songs are universal.  What songs do I know in English that your average Roman is going to know in Italian?  Think!  Think!

Pavarotti is the only Italian singer I know.  No, wait, Placido Domingo.  And he sang a few in English: "Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm ..."  SHELTER!  Where is my shelter in this foreign land?  And WHY isn't my group coming back in search of me?

"Stop and stare.  I think I'm moving but I go nowhere ..."  Now WHY am I hearing that song by One Republic in my head?

No, wait!  That isn't a song in my head.  That is the ring tone on my cell phone!  Cell phone!  Answer it!

My son!  Back at home in the USA!  Hi, honey; how ya doin'? ... Oh, ... Well did you look in the study?  Yeah, under Dad's desk, in that little drawer thing.  Say, listen, do you have your computer fired up?  ... Good.  Listen, honey, could you do a Google Earth for me?  ... Yeah.  See if you can find the Sistine Chapel in Rome.  ... Okay, I'll wait.  ... You've got it?  Great!  Now could you look on my desk next to the calendar for the copy of the itinerary of this tour I'm on and see what the name of my hotel is supposed to be? ... You found it?  Great!  ... No, I don't need to know the name of it.  Just do a Google map for me of the directions from the Sistine Chapel to that hotel, and then STAY on the phone and talk me back there. ... Yeah, I know.  Just help me, okay?  STOP laughing and start Googling.  Thank you!

Fiction by Rani Kaye - All Rights Reserved

Just for Grins - A Problem-Solving Flowchart

When I Wasn't Blogging

What have I been doing when I wasn't blogging?

There were quirky computer problems, stuff you couldn't quite get a handle on, and maybe it was just a matter of not enough RAM for the way we live.

Around about the end of January, I just quit trying.  I had a subscription to ancestry.com, and I quit using that, too ... and when it came up for renewal, I didn't renew it.

Meanwhile, my youngest son (he'll be 18 on Reformation Day) got "Smallville Season 1" for Christmas.  Smallville's a TV show about Clark Kent (Superman) as a teenager. Here's their MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/smallville

After we finished watching Season 1, we borrowed Seasons 2 & 3 at the library.  Early this spring Circuit City put seasons 2-4 on sale and we bought them and watched again, then bought Season 5 at Meijer and then Season 6 at Target.

This Summer we watched all the way through Seasons 1-6 AGAIN.

September 9th Season 7 was released on DVD.  Youngest son pre-ordered it at Best Buy, and picked it up that day after he reported for U.S. Navy DEP.

Youngest son is in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) for the U. S. Navy.  That is another problem we solved this summer -- how to pay for college.

Youngest son also installed more RAM (80 gig, I think) in my laptop computer in August, and he also built for himself (but I get to use it too) this incredibly fast screamin' machine I am blogging from in front of our new 40" HDTV.

 

So, I'm back with ancestry.com now and I have reconnected with my cousins and discovered a mess of new info.  Plus, youngest son had to go get permission to join the Navy signature from my ex, whom we hadn't seen in like 7 years, and I got from him the genealogy his grandfather had typed from his research in the Netherlands in the 1950s, and I posted all that at ancestry.com.

And we watched Smallville Season 8 Episode 1 on TV this past Thursday night.  Smallville is awesome in HD

And youngest son is back in school, a Senior, taking Physics and Phys. Ed, among other things.

 

 

 

And I'm back heavy into genealogy, and just beginning to blog again, and happy as a clam at high tide (or is it low tide -- I can never remember which is the way that saying goes).

So that's the story.

I'm back.

DSL is back on ... Now I have firewall & virus protection "issues"

 

Have to play computer geek tonight.  Hopefully I can get back to the fun stuff tomorrow.

OK - So I HAVE fallen off the edge of the world!

Still no internet, guys!  AT&T lost my order.  Now they say I can't have my DSL back until November 26th, "because of the holiday."  (Another 50 minutes on the phone with them, yesterday, BTW.)  A manager/DSL consultant was supposed to call me back yesterday.  No call.  Tempted to go with another carrier -- but then I'd suffer more than they would cuz I'd lose my email address.  So I wait. 

Cold Turkey !!!

We're going to be making some changes in our internet service, and beginning Monday, November 5th, until Tuesday, November 13th, we will be WITHOUT an internet connection at our home!  (This is a household of 3 people & 3 computers, mind you.)

MAYBE I'll get a chance to flitter about online at the office, before & after work ... depends what else will be going on from day to day.

But IF you don't hear from me for a week, I HAVE NOT fallen off the face of the earth.

I have fallen off the edge of the world
I have landed in another time
I carry the memories of a former life
Uncharted waters: There be dragons here!

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Yes!

Puh-leeez tell me all the work I did till 3:30 last night putting those pictures back on my blogs has made it through the night ......  E-YES!!!!! 

Happy day!

Later, y'all -- Time to earn my livin'!

Yahoooooooo!

Oh, I get it!!!  I copied and pasted my photos (my very own photos!!!!!!) from my yahoo blogs into my Multiply blogs ... but they came with a nasty little yahoo link.  They looked just fine last night ... but today they are little x-in-a-boxes, and when you click 'em you link to yahooooey.  Blah!

Okay.  I can deal with this.  Give me some time.  I will fix all the blogs by re-posting the photos from my computer, instead of from (good riddance) yahoo.

And just when I thought I was all moved in and gettin' settled, too.  Sigh.

  Hee hee hee -- Look what I just snagged (with permission) from our Yahoo Refugee Group site --- Thanx Alan!

Computer Humor

Funniest blog quote from yesterday:

"... Its 256 MB of RAM and crapload of crapware from HP are making the updates painfully slow ... "

Here's the link to the blog:

http://www.bbspot.com/Log/?module=Log&function=browse&id=844

Currently listening : Itzhak Perlman's Greatest Hits By Fryderyk Chopin Release date: By 17 February, 1998

Multi-tasking Mom

Putting away the holiday decorations, working on the laundry, and playing with the computer.

Speaking of computers, I've had to play "I.T. Gal" for family members twice today.  My husband added a new scanner/printer/copier and lost his internet connection, and my son called with media player problems.  (Just used "System Restore" for both problems.)

System Restore -- ah, I could wax eloquent on that concept.