Crashing

This has been an extremely crappy week regarding all things technology.

Logging into my computer, I noticed my background was different.  Then a pop-up announces - "Welcome to your new Dell!"

Beg pardon?

My computer thinks it is new.  I'm confused.  Apparently, so was my computer.

I ignore all this and head straight into my documents to get started on a draft column I've been writing.  Except my computer says This Folder Is Empty.

Excuse me?  This is not possible, I was working on it yesterday.  I have hundreds of documents.

Now curious, and ever-so slightly panicked, I click on Pictures. The computer says this folder is equally empty.

This is not good.   

Music? Gone.  Videos? Gone.  iTunes? Kaput. QuickBooks? Vanished.

Time to reboot, the computer's gone crazy.

After rebooting, which usually makes everything alright, I get a "Welcome To Your New Dell!" screen again.

It may not have been the Blue Screen of Death that I experienced when my laptop died a slow and painful death, but it was pretty close. 

Restore point! I'll go back in time and create my restore point to yesterday when I knew it worked.

Fail.  It won't let me.

My computer is possessed. 

I am not a happy camper.

Fortunately, I have everything backed up on my external hard drive.  Or at least I think I do.  But now that's a little wiggy too. 

Damn.

I am not a computer savvy person.  Everything computer related is by the seat of my pants and if I hit enough buttons I can make it work.  So I click on the C drive and notice it has the same amount of memory space used as usual, even though so much appears to be missing.  After clicking on lots of folders within that, I locate documents, pictures, music - miraculously - in a strange User folder.  I have no idea how I found it.  But it's there.  So I painstakingly save each and every individual document and picture folder as well as music.  It takes me the better part of the day but have to at least try before the Blue Screen of Death really does show up.

My poor computer is at the doctor now, hopefully getting debugged from all manner of Ebola-like infections. 

This isn't going to be cheap, I fear.

Then there's the other techno issue that I'm really cheesed about:  Older Boy's iPod touch went missing in the school locker room after track practice where he left it sitting on the bench.  In the twelve minutes it took for him to realize he'd left it and for me to drive back to school, it had vanished. I assumed it was picked up by a coach or a friend to give back to him.

Didn't happen.

To whomever took it: I hope you get a very itchy, oozing, leprosy-like, dermatological condition that causes severe disfigurement.  I also hope is not covered by insurance and it will take you years, if ever, to get over.  Don't forget about the laws of karma while you are listening to my kid's iPod.  You have just set in motion some very, very bad juju for yourself.  I hope you get everything that's coming to you which I personally hope includes jail time.  I used to be a prosecutor, my friend, so I'm big on jail time for those who steal other people's stuff.  And like Tom Petty, I Won't Back Down.  Oh yeah, good luck with that leprosy. 

Sometimes It's Just a Sandwich

Had you going there, didn't I?

It was only a craving.  It was just a sandwich.  Couldn't happen.  I asked for double knots and I got them.  Because if I'd waited for The Husband to take care of business, I'd have been knocked up again.  Men are so touchy about that sort of thing.

But that recent craving, which was very real, got me thinking about being pregnant what seems like so long ago.  About how endless those days of two in diapers seemed at the time.  About how fast they really do fly by if you're not paying attention.  And it made me kind of wistful.

Now I face the reality of mid-life signaling that phase of life is really over.  And life moves on. As it should.  Now it's closer to the empty nest than the full house. 

I often think if I'd started this motherhood gig a little earlier in life, I'd probably have a brood of five.  Maybe it's being an only child that made me want more than one.  Or maybe it was just one too many margaritas.

Perhaps it's the hormones of perimenopause that make me oh-so sentimental about motherhood right now (Am I the only one who tears up during Hallmark commercials?).  There are times, like now, that I wonder what it would have been like to have a little pink wrapped bundle in my life. 

But then I count my blessings when the boys start bickering over stupid things.  And on those days, an empty nest doesn't sound half bad.

It's Only A Craving, Right?

It's fairly obvious that I've been MIA in the blogging world for the last week.  That's because I've been off on a trip with The Husband.  Just the two of us.  Like grown-ups.

It's been a long, long time. And it was wonderful.

A friend left a message on my cell phone, "Have a good time in DC. But don't get pregnant!"

Har dee har har.

That was until today when I had a craving. Which was exactly the same craving (and the only thing I could hold down during my morning sickness-filled pregnancy fifteen years ago).  What makes it even more strange is how gross it should sound to a woman with tsunami-like waves of nausea back then. 

Are you ready for it? 

 A 6-inch Subway tuna sandwich with lettuce and extra pickles, Salt & Vinegar potato chips and real Coke.  But that's exactly what I wanted today (thankfully, minus the nausea). 

Have I been jinxed?

What makes this story even worse is that when I was pregnant the first time around, a woman in my office who was my age now thought she was going through the beginnings of perimenopause.  Didn't quite turn out that way.  She was preggers at 48 and we had our babies within a couple weeks of each other. 

Oh shit.

It's just a sandwich, it's just a sandwich.

What Happens When The Girls Go South

After my friend, *R*, suggested that I do some artwork to go with my columns, I put together a piece to go with Coming Clean.  It was fun - and encouraging - to hear everyone's responses.  But this week, rather than write, I've been spending time playing with my paint, paper and scissors which will play hell with my upcoming deadline.

So before I throw myself into Writing Frenzy on a Deadline, here's the latest piece I've been working on.  It was inspired from a column about the not-so-subtle body changes that occur for women at midlife.  Like no longer needing Victoria's Sexy Secret Embrace Bra.  When the girls start their trek to your personal southern hemisphere, you will need Victoria's new bra, sporting secret dual hydraulic jacks.  And sadly, you'll never be able to pull off that Madonna bra again.

Coming Clean

Since I've had my share of issues on the cleaning front, I found an old column which explains the history of why I'm domestically challenged.

As my mother and I watched TV one night in the early 70s, I never suspected that the Flip Wilson Show would change my life.  As we tuned in and adjusted the foil-covered rabbit ears, the fuzzy image on screen became clear.  It was Helen Reddy belting out I Am Woman, the anthem that encouraged a newly empowered generation of females to roar.  My mother watched, transfixed.  When Helen stopped singing, my mother stood up and let out a barbaric yawp of her own.  “I’m going to college,” she announced and left the room presumably to burn a bra before matriculating.

Watching mom navigate being a full-time student while also being a full-time parent and wife, I learned a lot of things. I learned how to entertain myself when she dragged me to her classes because the babysitter bailed.  I learned that in the name of time management you have to set priorities.  Given all she had to do, it’s no surprise that teaching me how to clean was never very high on mom’s to-do list.  Thus began my blissful oblivion to dirt. 

My first roommate used to lecture me with a toilet brush in her hand while saying, “How can you be such a slob when you have such good personal hygiene?”  Even my five year old nephew noticed.  During a visit to my house (in my defense it was during finals), he announced, much to the horror of his mother, “Aunt Denise your house is SO dirty!”  A sympathetic friend once gave me a magnet that said: Dull Women Have Immaculate Houses.  In fact, I could probably get a doctor’s excuse to get out of cleaning – I’m pretty sure that whatever optic nerve is required to see grime is not only dried-up, but is also dust-covered.

So when I hear women lament about their sloppy husbands, I have to clam up.  The Husband’s knowledge and execution of all things related to cleaning is truly impressive.  He’s a natural. He learned housekeeping skills from the Master, the Queen of Clean herself– his mother.  Not only could you eat off any surface in her home, you could probably perform major surgery on the kitchen table using any nearby cutlery with much less risk of infection than any hospital OR in the country. So, of course, The Husband knows the names and purpose of even the most obscure household cleaning products.  And he’s not afraid to use them.

But after a friend heard me whine about my housekeeping ignorance, she helpfully suggested that I follow her lead.  “Get a cleaning lady,” she advised, “best thing I’ve ever done.”  Now bear in mind this is the very same woman who will jump up mid-conversation and announce in a panic, “I just remembered, the cleaning lady is coming tomorrow!  I have to go home and straighten up!”

Beg pardon?  Aren’t you missing the point? 

But I’ll never have to resort to that.  Because The Husband will always do a cleaning intervention before the Health Department slaps yellow “Biohazard - Do Not Enter” tape across my front door.  And to any girls out there who might marry my sons one day, I promise not only to let dad teach them how to clean but to send them to Nannie’s Queen of Clean for a week of Household Hygiene Boot Camp.

I don’t blame my mom for not teaching me how to clean; she had more interesting things to do in the 70s.  If there’s anyone to blame, it’s Helen Reddy.  But that’s okay, because just like mom, I’d rather roar than clean any day.

A special thanks to my friend *R* who suggested I do some artwork to go with my columns. So this, of course, is all her fault.                     

 

This is the only known photographic evidence of me actually in the act of cleaning. This is just before my roommate hit me with the toliet brush.