I’m on vacation. Away from home. Know what that means? Of course, you immediately reply, “It means that your bank will no longer recognize your computer.”
I wanted to ensure certain deposits had been received. They were due from the Federal gubmint. Due to my distrust of this current direction of said gubmint, I just decided to allay concerns, log on, and check them.
“We don’t recognize this device,” the bank’s website exclaimed. “We want to send you a code to your email address attached to this account. Enter the code here.”
Sigh. Okay. I’ve been through this sock hop before. Go log into the account, which is actually my wife’s account. Can you guess what happened?
“We don’t recognize this device,” the email’s website exclaimed. “We want to send you a code to your other email address you listed. Enter the code here.”
Oh, bother. Logged into the other email account, which is also my wife’s. Note: all this was being done in the name of the joint account which we designate as belonging to my wife.
“”We don’t recognize this device,” the email’s website exclaimed. “We want to send you a code to your other email address you listed. Enter the code here.”
GRRRRR and double-GRRRRR. Screw it, I told The Neurons. This will wait until I get home next week.
I’m infatuated with the expression, “It’s really raining.” It’s like we were challenging the assertion that rain is falling. “No, no, it’s really raining.” In this context, though, ‘it’s really raining’ means precipitation is falling at a heavy level.
Anyway, accompanied by my floofguard, I came in from the covered patio and traveled through the house to where my wife was sitting in the snug. “It’s really raining,” I said.
“I know. I told you that a few minutes.”
“Really? I didn’t hear you. It must have ricocheted off my ear without getting to my brain.”
“You weren’t in the room. I don’t know where you were. I said it twice, thinking that you might pick it up.”
“Well, I didn’t.” I shook my head. “I guess reception was bad.”
I took on an easy DIY project yesterday. This was a new foyer light.
The new foyer light.
This was my wife’s idea. I thought the old one was fine. We’d installed it shortly after moving in back in 2005. It worked, putting out light and everything. Click on, click off.
My wife said, “We need to update our lights. It’ll make the house look newer.”
Sure, I thought with a mental shrug. I had no reason to buy a new light but had no real reason to oppose buying a new light. They don’t cost much, and the old one will be donated to Habitats for Humanity and re-used.
We went on a light search together, an outing I found tedious and boring. I found this light and offered it as a possibility. “Let me think about it,” she answered, walking away. A little while later found her back at the light. We discussed its pros and cons.
“It’s black,” I said. “With seeded glass.” She’d specified those things. That’s what attracted me to it. I’m a hunter; she established those parameters and that’s what I sought.
“It’s flush mounted,” she said. “Can you install it?”
“Yes.” I was surprised she asked. I’m a budgeteer DIY. There’s little that I don’t think I can do, given time, tools, and video instructions. But the reality is, I’ve installed over a dozen ceiling lights in my life. The first was in Germany, where I shocked myself in an episode which will only die in memory when I pass away. I’ve been a lot more respectful of electricity after that.
So, she was out yesterday — Girl’s Night at the Movies, done at 1 PM because none of them want to drive at night. The feature was Earth Girls Are Easy. With her out, I pursued the new install. Half an hour, I figured.
I’m such a stupid optimist.
After turning off the power to the light (see, lesson learned), I pulled out the ladder and removed the old light with relative ease. So far, so good. But I needed to remove the installation plate as well; the new light and old plate did not match up. No big thing, right? Just two screws.
Here’s where WTF entered the project.
I could not get one screw to turn. At friggin’ all. Different screwdrivers were tried. WTF, over? I mean, I screwed it in. I should be able to screw it back out.
By now, my body was running with enough sweat to fill a bathtub. Repositioning the ladder a few times, I positioned myself to apply max torque. I realized that part of my issue was that the mounting plate was not perfectly aligned with the screw, and that extra pressure was hampering my efforts. So, I wedged that thing around just a little. With the slowness of a MAGAt realizing that Trump lied to them, the screw finally began turning. Of course, it’s a two-inch long screw, a bolt, really. I finally got it out, though.
The rest was as easy as eating pizza. I was just finishing as my wife arrived home.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“No sweat,” I answered.
We agreed, it looks better than the old one. The photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s a lousy camera phone’s lousy photo. But the change was startling. The other light hung down about half a foot more, so it had more of a ‘presence’. The change to this light opened up the space.
I told her all that. She agreed.
“Now we just have to do the breakfast bar and dining room chandelier,” she said.
I’d installed them. Sure, that was twenty years ago, but I nodded.
A casual friend, Diana, an older woman, had a large yard sale. People found many products which were unused, as in still in its original packaging. Bruce said, “I have a drill press and wasn’t planning to buy a new one. But this one was completely unused, I mean, brand new and in its box. It’s better than mine, which needs some work, and she was only asking fifty dollars for it. I felt like it’d be a sin to walk away from that.”
People openly talked about the many thing and unused products for sale. Sitting nearby, Diana explained, “Well, I get lonely, so I order things so I could chat up the delivery people.”
That shocked my sensibilities. Diana is an extrovert, a real people person. She belongs to a book club, bridge club, and choir. She regularly travels, attends exercise classes at the local Y, and attends plays and concerts. She’s involved and engaged, and yet, she’s buying things so she can talk to people.
It’s something that I, a person who is quite comfortable not speaking with anyone but my wife, cat, and barista for days, struggles to comprehend.
My wife and I have often spoken about opening a book store. But we also like coffee shops, so we amend our play place to be a coffee shop and book store. But I also like deli sandwiches, so…
Yes, in my perfect world, I’d own a three-headed hydra shop selling books, coffee (with pastries), and sandwiches. We’d be playing the blues in there, because coffee shops and blues go together in my mind. Of course, I’ve owned a couple businesses and know, they are not easy work, so I ease away from pursuing the dream. Besides, as my wife likes to relate, someone who owns a book store shouldn’t love books, they should love selling books.
That takeway was from the owner of our favorite book store, Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon. And whenever we talk about opening a book store, we remind ourselves of what he said.
Mar-A-Floofgo(floofinition) – Literally, ‘sea of floofs’, a mythical place among housefloofs where everything can be scratched, destroyed, or knocked over, and be magically repaired overnight; where treats fall from the skies like rain and animals can eat as much as they want; where cans are always being opened, bacon, steak, cheese, and chicken, are always being served, where food and water bowls are never empty, and your favorite person is always there to play or cuddle. Origins: “The Live Floof Scrolls”, a set of hundreds of scrolls of ancient floof prophecies and histories, recovered between 1946 and 1956 from Floofrum Cave, and since partially translated.
In Use: “Many people see their pet floofs moving in their sleep, limbs twitching, eyes flickering, and think that they’re ‘chasing a rabbit’ but other floofs know that the animals are often visting Mar-A-Floofgo through the floof portal.” — excerpt from “Through the Floof Portal”, 1871.
Dad and I spoke for almost an hour today. The conversation energized me, boosting my mood into a happier place. On the surface, a high percentage can be attributed to relief: Dad was home. No greater problems were found during his latest hospital visit, and it was a short one. He and his wife were both friendly, engaging, and happy on their end. Undoubtably this fed me and my spirits.
I also insist, though, that some of this came from just speaking with Dad. He and I are familiars. We mock and respect one another. He’s one of the few people I sense I can really spill myself to regarding what’s going on, whether it’s politics, writing, relationships with my wife, Mom, and sisters, or my DIY projects.
We’ve not always been like these. It’s been a long evolution. I’m glad we made it here, though. It’s taken time. We followed a torturous path. But here we are.
I am apparently a beaucoup sneezer. My sneezes aren’t small blemishes on the aural experience. They explode out of me with Krakatoa force. I’m also sneezing several times a day, basically at home, mostly in the home office (snug), causing me spouse and I to both speculate that something in that region is causing the sneeze.
Well, I let go of three eruptions the other day.
My wife said, “Did you read about the murder in Ashland?”
I was horrified. “No. When did that happen?”
“It didn’t happen yet but I hear that a wife was driven to madness and killed her husband after he kept sneezing.”
Yes, I laughed. She wouldn’t do something like that.
I should probably buy a new computer. Microsoft has warned me that it won’t be supporting this one much longer. That is a concern. Chrome never makes such dire threats. I don’t know if I can use another OS and other browsers. Probably can but it would be more of an investment in time than I want to do.
The computer is over a decade old. It can’t run Windows 11 without more changes. More importantly, the computer has developed some issues. Its chassis is slightly bent. That causes some control issues. Several keys have been replaced but it hasn’t been a successful fix. The HP Envy’s silver edges are worn black. The tab, q, and x keys often leave their stations. The backspace key broke in half and is held together by cellotape. Several keys, specifically the e, d, c, o, l, and n keys, have lost their identity as my fingernails tapped it away. I often need to consciously press hard on the t, c, and n key to get a response, along with the ctrl key and the delete key. It all slows me down. Every once in a while, the CD drive will pop open on its own, shouting, “Surprise,” like a drunk uncle, just to remind me that it’s there.
So a new computer need can be shown. But, this one still works. I’m just loathe to get rid of things just because they’re not the newest or because it’s less than perfect. Sure, it takes five minutes to fire up. When Chrome is used, five more minutes will pass before that is loaded. It plays pretty well with Windows and Edge, though.
I don’t know. I have the money. It was my birthday and I didn’t get anything else. Maybe it’s time, but I’ll probably let a few more weeks of sleep pass before I look for another. The whole thought train reminds me that I bought my first computer forty years ago.
Sean Duffy, acting interim pretend director of NASA, wants to ‘expedite plans’ to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon. This is probably because, as everyone who has ever seen the numbers on space programs, sending people and equipment to the Moon is incredibly cheap right now, thanks to Trump’s tariffs. Also, thanks to Trump’s tariffs and the beautiful revenue flowing in to the Treasury, more money than anyone has ever seen at one time. The deficit will drop by 1500% overnight, so the U.S. will have more money to spend than ever imagined.
They also want to launch a new U.S. space station. With Trump’s love of gold, I’d expect the interior to be lavishly bedecked with gold plated pieces, including a gold plated toilet. He’ll probably want it named for hisself, so the regime will be launching the the Donald J. Trump Space Station. Melania Trump, who is a genius, as everyone knows (she married Trump!), will emerge from her seclusion to design the new space suits. Trump Space Industries will manufacture them (in China, of course). They will have tags which say, “Made in the U.S.A.”
Cost overruns will beset the project. So will schedule problems and delays because other countries which have the needed materials and manufacturing resources dropped the U.S. as a trading partner. Seeing the numbers, TACO will growl, “You’re fired,” replacing the project director with someone more familiar with Trump math, such as a Fox News anchor, or one of his personal lawyers. “Give me a Sharpie,” the Donald will bark, and then he’ll fix the numbers with a Sharpie, as he’s prone to do. (You should see the Sharpie markups of his personal Trump Bible!) He’ll tell us about his uncle, who was a professor at M.I.T., and tell us how his uncle taught him everything anyone knows about space and space travel back in 1980.
Trump will call it the big beautiful space mission, the most beautiful mission ever in the history of the world, the very, very greatest space mission ever. Grossly overloaded with gold, corrupted by Trump math, forced to use substitute products, the gold-plated Trump Rocket won’t clear the gantry and collapse on the launch pad. Comedians and social media will overflow with a comic Trump failure to launch meme.
“It’s Biden’s fault,” Trump will shriek, and order everyone to start talking about something other than the rocket launch failure. A text will fly across Trump social media. “The lying scum democrat Deep State led by lying Newsom and KAMALA HARRIS and Barack HUSSEIN Obama did this to me because they don’t want to Make America Great Again. THIS WILL NOT STOP US. WE WILL BUILD THE BEST ROCKETS AMERICA HAS EVER SEEN AND THEY CAN’T STOP US. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Michael Seidel, writer 