Happy Halloween

Whatever happened to the Transylvania Twist?

It is trick or treat time here and we are giving out candy to the kids who are not scared off by the dogs rushing the door.

Note:I am officially old. Kids are coming to the door dressed as characters and celebrities I do not recognize.

If It Wasn't For Bad Luck

We (my husband, me, and our dogs) are in Denver. My husband had a trip planned with his father to Oklahoma-where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain- for a small family, well, sort of a reunion, but mostly a remembrance for my husband's late grandfather. We drove in last Wednesday because my husband and my father-in-law were scheduled to fly out of DIA on Thursday morning. But a major storm was predicted to hit Denver late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning so my husband rescheduled for a flight out that night.

Being the man my husband is, he decided that all the things he had planned to do on Wednesday afternoon and evening were still doable in the little time he now had available. He just had to leave my sister's house by 7:30PM in order to be at the airport in time to meet the shuttle bus that his father was taking from Fort Collins on time-no problem. At 7:32PM I went upstairs and found him shoving last minute things into his suitcase. He assured me that he was right on time and five minutes later he kissed me goodbye and hurried out my sister's front door, suitcase in hand, heading for our pick-up truck.

About an hour later my sister, brother-in-law, niece and I were sitting at a table in a neighborhood Bar waiting for the kitchen to cook and the waitress to bring us the food we ordered. As we wait my niece uses her cell phone to text message a friend. All of a sudden her body jerked and she put the phone to her ear. She listened and then handed the phone to me saying it was Uncle Bob. I take the phone and hear my husband say that he had called each of our (my sister, my brother-in-law, and me) cell phones and our niece was the only one who answered. I tell him it is very loud where we are and we did not hear our phones ringing and that the only reason his niece answered is because she had the phone in her hand. He then tells me that he grabbed my suitcase on the way out of the house and asks if could I bring his to the airport.

It was now a little after 8:00PM and the last thing I wanted to do was drive all the way out to the airport. We would first have to drive home and pick up the suitcase. We knew that when we got the suitcase to my husband he and his father would have to get through security, wait for the train that would take them out to the concourse, and then walk a bit to their gate. Their flight was scheduled out at 9:25PM. I didn't think we could make it in time. I tell my husband what I am thinking and add that he could drop the suitcase off at the unclaimed baggage area and we both could buy the things we needed until he got back on Sunday night. That is when he admitted he had put his tickets in his suitcase. I told him we were leaving right away. With a bit of creative driving on my sister's part we got to the airport by 8:45PM and stopped in front of the United doors long enough for me to pull my husband's suitcase out of the back of my sister's SUV as my husband shoved my suitcase in. I gave him a quick kiss and then he and we were gone. Since we did not hear from him again that night we assumed he and his father made their flight. My husband was so chagrined by what he had done I did not hear from him again until Saturday night.

On Sunday night my husband walks back through my sister's front door and the first thing he tells me is that he got in a car accident on his way back from the airport. He decided to stop at a Wendy's on the way home and overshot the entrance to the restaurant by a couple of feet. After checking to see if anyone was behind him he stared backing the truck up. The next thing he felt was the back of the truck hit something. It was a small car. I guess the police office who answered the accident call thought the driver in the small car was tailgating because he only gave my husband a ticket for Unsafe Backing Up which is equivalent to having a broken tail light.

By now my husband was frazzled. Frazzled because the accident. Frazzled because he is tired. Frazzled because he is hungry. I make him some scrambled eggs, a toasted bagel, and a cup of tea. I also quarter an apple for him and put it on his plate along with the other food. He is eating his food when he suddenly put his fork down and put his hand to his throat. I knew right away what had happened. My husband has congenital Esophageal Strictures, which means a section of his esophagus is narrower that the rest of his esophagus. Sometimes if he does not chew his food carefully something can get stuck. He can breath when this happens but it worries the hell out of me.

He has some other techniques he can try if he cannot dislodge the piece of food by moving his esophagus back and forth with his hand. Nothing worked this time and after an 90 minutes I drove him to Swedish Hospital Emergency as he sat in the passengers seat spitting into a plastic cup every minute or two. When food blocks his esophagus nothing can get past that spot including the mouth and throat secretions that we normally do not even notice.

At first we thought my husband would have to have a scope with a tiny grabber on the end of it eased down his throat but the doctor decided to try a muscle relaxant before moving on to the scope. After fifteen minutes and right when the words, "Maybe it's time to call in the GI specialist," came out of the doctor's mouth, my husband felt the chunk of food slide a bit. He asked for a glass of water and drank in down. He then turned the cup upside down and set it on the bed to show that there was no longer an obstruction in his esophagus. We all laughed, relieved that he would not have to be scoped.

In the car on the way home my husband and I talked about the strange things that had happened to him. The lyrics to John Lennon's song Instant Karma kept going through my head. I don't know what is going on but I do hope this is the end of it.

What The...?

(photo via Superdickery)

Rate Your Bigotry


Looks like a page out of the Klu Klux Klan recruitment handbook to me.

Rating Your Answers:

1. If you picked UM! LIKE for all of the above:

You are not Klan material.

2. If you picked UM! LIKE for the following things:

Catholics, Foreigners, Indians, Jews, and Negroes

You are definitely not Klan material.

3. If you picked SO-SO! LUKEWARM for the following things and are a low achieving high school dropout who blames everyone else for your problems:

Catholics, Foreigners, Indians, Jews, and Negroes

Re-take this test after you are fired from your job for your own incompetence and then replaced by a minority.

4. If you picked UGH! DISLIKE only for the following things:

Alligators, cabbage, detective stories, long-hair music, and spiders

You are not Klan material.

5. If you picked UGH! DISLIKE only for the following things:

Catholics, Foreigners, Indians, Jews, and Negroes

Quit messing around, we know you are already a member of the Klan.

6. If you picked NO THOUGHT! VACANT for all of the above:

Give this book back to your Mommy.

7. If you picked NO THOUGHT! VACANT for the following things:

Catholics, Foreigners, Indians, Jews, and Negroes

Congratulations, you are perfect Klan material. Please come to our next meeting so we can indoctrinate you into the Klan view of the world.

50 Way To Leave Iraq

Bush Abandons Phrase 'Stay the Course' on Iraq


The problem is all inside your head, he said to me
The answers easy if you take it logically
We had to help them in their struggle to be free
But election time is here and now I see
There must be fifty ways to leave Iraq

Fifty ways to leave Iraq

He said, its really not my habit to intrude
But Saddam Hussein was one really scary dude
The voters did not react with gratitude
So now I'm in a different mood

There must be fifty ways to leave Iraq

We'll just slip out the back, Jack
We'll make a new plan, Stan
We don't need to be coy, Roy
Now that the voters disagree,
We'll hop on the bus, Gus
We don't need to discuss much
We'll just drop off the key, Lee
Got an election coming up, you see

He said the drop in numbers gives me such a pain
I wish there was something I could do to make them rise again
I know, we'll change our course and let Iraq take all the blame
(For the mess we have made)

He said I tried to blame my problems on the Democrats
And I'm surprised to find the people saw through all of that
I then decided that I must change course and find another tact
There must be fifty ways to leave Iraq
Fifty ways to leave Iraq

Just slip out the back, Jack
We'll make a new plan, Stan
We don't need to be coy, Roy
Now that the voters disagree

Hop on the bus, Gus
We don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
Got an election coming up, you see

We'll just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
We don't need to be coy, Roy
Now that the voters disagree

We'll just hop on the bus, Gus
We don't need to discuss much
We'll just drop off the key, Lee
Got to get ourselves reelected, you see

Monday, Monday...

can't trust that day,
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way.
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be...
-John Phillips, Monday Monday

This morning I woke-up feeling blue. Don't know why, just woke-up feeling like I was in the middle of February after 20 days of overcast skies. When I pulled back the bedroom curtains I discovered that instead of it being a dreary day that matched my mood it was in reality a bright, sunny, beautiful Fall day. Although that lifted my spirits a bit it wasn't until I caught sight of Duke out of the corner of my eye that I perked up.

Duke is still wearing his Elizabethan collar, which means he is still trying to figure out a way to get it off. What caught my eye was him in the yard spinning around like a whirling Dervish in an attempt to dislodge the damn thing. I did not know dogs understood the concept of centrifugal force. I started laughing and could feel my spirits lift with each exhaling breath.

Later in the morning I walked up to the grocery store to buy a few things. That's where I got stuck in a long line of customers waiting to be checked out by the slowest checker in the store. The woman in front of me had just a few things but the woman in front of her had a grocery cart full and as I expected it took awhile for her groceries to be scanned and bagged. At that point the store phone rang and the clerk answered it. While this was going on the woman in front of me moved up to the check writing ledge and set her purse down.

She stood there and watched as the clerk took the phone call. She watched as the clerk announced over the intercom that there was a phone call for "Bob." She watched as the grocery clerk swiped her items over the scanner. She watched as the grocery clerk totaled her order. She watched at the bag boy bagged her order and she watched as the clerk announced the amount due on what had been scanned. Then, and only then, she reached into her purse, pulled out a check book, opened it, picked up a pen, and slowly started filling the check out. My blood pressure hit the ceiling. One of my pet peeves is people who do not start filling out their checks the minute they reach the check ledge. They know they are going to pay with a check. Start filling the damn thing out the minute you get up there! OK???

By the time I got back home I was on an even keel and after putting my groceries away I started fixing something for lunch. As I stood at the kitchen counter slicing a tomato I felt something tickle my neck right above my turtleneck collar. Without thinking I reached up and put my index finger and thumb between my skin and the collar and closed them. I felt something hard and thought my fingers were surounding a small twig but for some reason I panicked. I yanked my hand away from my neck and instinctively threw what I was holding away from me. Whatever it was hit the backsplash behind the sink with a small thud.

Feeling a little foolish I stepped over to the sink to look at what had frightened me and was horrified to see a live Yellow Jacket wasp crawling on the cold-water faucet handle. I walked across the kitchen to get the fly swatter but when I got back the wasp was gone. Now I was really freaking out because (1) I had no idea where it was and (2) because I am allergic to wasp stings. I did not want this thing in my house. I called my husband from the living room and we both started looking for it. My husband said the wasp must be cold or I would not have been able to pick it up. It could not have flown too far. That bit of information was no comfort to me. I just wanted this thing out of my house.

We started searching the kitchen. We looked on the floor just in case it fell off the counter and was crawling around down there. My husband started pulling things on the counter away from the wall to see if it crawled behind any of them. I kept looking up because I was sure the wasp was not as cold as my husband thought it was and that it was still able to fly. After another look around the kitchen at ceiling level I glanced down at the stove I was standing next to and saw the wasp crawling on one of the burner grates closest to me. I had the fly swatter in my hand but the thought of touching it in any way was inconceivable to me at that point so I called my husband over. Being braver than I he didn't need a fly swatter. He got a couple of paper napkins, picked up the wasp, crushed it, and threw it in the trash.

Let's see. So far this morning I have felt sadness, happiness, anger, horror, fear, anxiety, and relief. Why can't it be Tuesday already?

Portrait Of A Gloomy Dog

BIRD UPDATE

Wouldn't you know it. The little guy did not show today.

Birdie, Birdie In The Sky

This is a slightly blurry photo of a Common Ground Dove. Why is this interesting? Because the photo was taken this morning in my side yard. And because Common Ground Doves normally are not seen north of the southern parts of Texas, California, and other states along the US/Mexico boarder.

He first showed up at our birdfeeder the day before yesterday with a group of Mourning Doves. At first we thought he was a just one of the other doves offspring since he was so small but then we realized it was too late in the season for baby sized birds to be baby birds. We look in our Stokes Field Guide to Birds and discovered that the bird we had at our birdfeeder was actually a Common Ground Dove. My husband contacted an ornithologist at one of the community colleges here in Kansas who contacted a birder in Colorado who said he would be out this way Saturday and would like to come and see the bird for himself. In a bit of synchronicity the man's parents live here in town.

So around 0800 tomorrow morning I will have a stranger in my house, sitting in a kitchen chair near the window that looks out at the birdfeeder, hoping he will be lucky enough to see a live Common Ground Dove drinking from my birdbath.

American Culture Is Not Healthy For Women Or Other Living Things

Last Sunday,October 15, 2006, I read the following at Joesph Duemer's blog:

Chores
Despite the fact that there is something deeply wrong in the nation, something deeply haywire, I keep doing chores. I'm like Beckett's Molloy crawling through the forest, not toward light, but toward the vague idea that light might exist, except that I find it hard to maintain Molloy's sense of humor. Madmen murder school girls. Boys shoot their teachers & their sisters. America has always treated its women badly, but now we are seeing the embodied, dramatized evidence of misogyny in the actions of men who are exceptional only in that they act on their fantasies. The pure products of America. Go crazy. But it is our particular craziness, my townspeople. In the heart of the heart of the country is an all-consuming hatred of the female. As the US veers toward wider, endless war, the feminine is simply one more thing that is unacceptable in the Late American Empire. So I put up birdfeeders this afternoon, mowed the lawn for the last time this year, cleared the deck, then came in & made dinner in the lovely new kitchen. Am I simply being sentimental? Naive? Last night, watching television, I burst into tears. I think it was during a commercial, but my mind is too fucked-up to remember exactly.

Joe's words were a shotgun blast to my brain and heart. His words were so upsetting to me that I didn't even attempt to answer his questions or acknowledge his pain. Why? Because I was so shocked to see in print the thoughts I have had myself. And no, Joe, you weren't being naive or sentimental. We all should be grieving.

You Find Me.....Repulsive?

Gary Clarke and Gary Conway in How To Make A Monster.

Duke has ringworm. I have spent the afternoon vacuuming the carpets, washing dog bedding, mats, crates, and towels. I am on my second to last load right now. I have sprayed bleach-water on everything that I cannot put in the washing machine. I have called the neighbors and warned them not to let their children pet the dogs for the next three weeks. I have calmed down.

Where Are They Now?

1. Search Engines from the past. Some old, some new. Some never change, some do.

2. The architects of the Iraq war. Fired or promoted?

3. The Searchers. Still touring after all these years.

4. Denver Broncos running back Floyd Little. Sports broadcaster, owner of a Ford dealership, and now author.

5. Yoda, Jedi Master from the Star Wars saga. Seems to be writing the For The Record column in my town's weekly newspaper:

Sept. 20- Victim of a criminal threat was Tina Waltz.

6. Animal Superstars. It's amazing how many are dead.

Television News

Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone.
-Hodding Carter

I woke up the morning and tuned NPR News on the radio where I heard there had been a 6.6 earthquake in Hawaii yesterday morning. This was the first I had heard of this disaster and I was surprised by my reaction to it. First, I was relieved to learn that no one was seriously hurt. Second, I was surprised that I was not feeling any fear or anxiety the way I would if I had watched images of this event on television. Not seeing images of the destruction almost instantly after it happened and not seeing these images replayed again and again distanced me from the incident. It was still a shock but at the same time I did not feel I was in danger myself or that the world was in anyway more threatening or perilous because of something that had happened at a place roughly three thousand miles away from me.

There'll Be Some Changes Made

For there's a change in the weather, there's a change in the sea,
So from now on there'll be a change in me.
-Billy Higgins/W. Benton Overstreet

The weather is changing. The days are cooler, the nights are crisper, the wind is stronger, the sunlight is softer, and high overhead in a china blue sky the sound of trumpeting flocks of Sandhill Cranes can be heard as they begin their journey South. The other day I watched out my bedroom window as many of the yellow leaves on my neighbors cottonwood trees detached themselves and gently floated to the ground like large snowflakes. When I walked to the post office later that same morning the streets were filled with dead leaves scurrying down the asphalt in a futile attempt to stay ahead of the wind. All indicators that Fall is here.

Then there is my own personal indicator; the quilt folded at the end of my bed. Yesterday my bedding consisted of 2 cotton sheets, one blanket, and a cotton bed spread. But now that the nights are cooler we need that quilt to help keep us warm. As we get closer to Winter and the nights get colder I will remove the cotton sheets and replace them with flannel. Sometime around February when the nights are at their coldest I will remove the quilt and replace the cotton bedspread with a comforter. Then as we move into Spring the process will reverse.

First the comforter will be replaced with the cotton bedspread and the quilt. Then as the days get warmer the flannel sheets with be removed and cotton sheets will be put on the bed. As we near the end of Spring the quilt will no longer be needed and will be put away. As Summer heats up I will remove the blanket and then, when it is hot enough to use the air conditioner, return it to the bed. At this time next year I will again be folding the quilt each morning and putting it at the end of my bed. The first time I do this each year I know Fall has truly arrived.

The Nairobi Trio

God, I love Ernie Kovacs. The Nairobi Trio was a running gag on his show. I remember first seeing this when one of the networks rebroadcast episodes of his show, aptly titled The Ernie Kovacs Show, in the 1960's. Ernie is the one with the cigar and his wife Eddie Adams is the one playing the piano. The third ape could be anyone. Ernie had his friends (like Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra) play the part. The song is called "Solfeggio."

Update

Whatever was going on seems to have worked itself out in the end.
(wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more)

Feeling Sick, Sick, Sick

Oh my, I don't know what hit me but I am not feeling very well today. Hopefully I will be doing better tomorrow.

Travel

The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.
- Louis L'Amour,US novelist of westerns (1908 - 1988)


Just got back from a long Columbus Day weekend in Denver. Did lots while there but I am too tired to write about them now. I will show you the wet weather boots I bought:



It's a nice boot. It is comfy, fits well, and looks good on. The only problem is that when I stand up after sitting I get that Andy Taylor thing going where part of my pant leg gets caught up in the back of my boot. Drives me crazy.

No Surprise Here

You Failed 8th Grade Science

Sorry, you only got 5/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

I failed eighth grade science when I was in the eighth grade.

Holy Crap!

My website hits for yesterday tripled! How, you may ask, did this happen? Well, it helps if you put your own name into the title of your post. It really helps if that name is also the name of a certain men's magazine model of the year.

Raymond Chandler

Without television to distract me I am reading more. Yesterday I finished re-reading The Midnight Raymond Chandler, a collection of stories and novels. Some of the short stories and all of the novels have private-eye Philip Marlowe as the main character. I don't like Philip Marlowe that much. He is a bigoted, masochistic, alcoholic, misogynistic prude. And, if you read too many of the stories in too short a time, you can get sick of him very quickly. But I love Raymond Chandler. I love him for the way he sprinkles similes and metaphors throughout his stories. It's the literary equivalent of sprinkling M&M's in a box of popcorn. Some examples:

On the dance floor half a dozen couples were throwing themselves around with the reckless abandon of a night watchman with arthritis.
(Playback)

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
(The Big Sleep)

The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings.
(The Big Sleep)

Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.
(Farewell, My Lovely)

The voice got as cool as a cafeteria dinner.
(Farewell, My Lovely)

There were two hundred and eighty steps up to Cabrillo Street. They were drifted over with windblown sand and the handrail was as cold and wet as a toad's belly.
(Farewell, My Lovely)

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight.
(The Little Sister)

I was a blank man. I had no face, no meaning, no personality, hardly a name. I didn't want to eat. I didn't even want a drink. I was the page from yesterday's calendar crumpled at the bottom of the waste basket.
(The Little Sister)

He wore an oyster-white raincoat and gloves and no hat and his white hair was as smooth as a bird's breast.
(The Long Goodbye)

His surprise was as thin as the gold on a weekend wedding ring.
(The Long Goodbye)

He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel.
(The Long Goodbye)

All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blond as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk.
(The Long Goodbye)

Inside my head thoughts stuck together like files on flypaper.
(The Long Goodbye)

He had short red hair and a face like a collapsed lung.
(The Long Goodbye)

"They'd put you in the psycho ward, and believe me, the people who run that place are about as sympathetic as Georgia chain-gang guard."
(The Long Goodbye)

"What I'd tell him you could fold into a blade of grass."
(The Long Goodbye)

I called him from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest.
(Trouble Is My Business)

Fun stuff. I love Chandler's writing so much I crave this and this for Christmas.

The Name Game

Whenever I work at the library I notice most of our patrons, the one's who check out books, are either very old or very young. The younger adults come in to either check out books-on-tape or magazines. The older children come in to use the computers to either play games or go online.

The last time I worked behind the check-out desk I was very conscious of the names of the people who checked out books. I had a child called Shakotah (a boy) and an older gentleman called Elmer come up to the counter within five minutes of each other. Only in this day and age would someone name their boy Shakotah. Plus I think I can safely say that you are not going to run across a little boy named Elmer anytime soon. That got me thinking about how children's names come in and go out of style.

For the rest of the day I kept track of the names of the young children, five years-old and younger, and the names of their great-grandparents, people born in the 1920's and 1930's.

Great-grandparents:
Girls- Hattie, Ethel, Bernice, Pearl, Gerty, Minnie.
Boys- Norvin, Otto, Ruben, Delbert, Elmer, Alvin.

Children:
Girls- Brandi, Breanna, Jacy, Mallery, Piper, Chasisley.
Boys- Tyler, Kale, Logan, Shakotah, Cody, Brett.

It's interesting how old-fashion the great-grandparent's names look in this day and age. Someday names like Piper, Mallery, Kale and Shakotah will seem just as antiquated.

Baling Twine

-Stephanie Davis

Way out in the country, miles from town
Things have a way of breaking down
At the most inconvenient of times.
Which can make the going rather rough
Unless of course you know enough
To always, always, carry baling twine.

Baling twine, you know what I mean
Fluorescent orange polypropylene
That for wrapping bales of hay has proved a winner.
Ah, but friend that's just its start in life
The stuff's got more uses than a Ginsu knife
At the annual Donner Party reunion dinner.

It'll close a gate
Hold your bait
Fasten on your license plate
Tow a sled
Lace a Ked
Hang your deer in the shed
Keep your 'mater plants
And your pants from falling down.

It'll fix a cinch in a pinch
Let your stirrups out an inch
Double as a fan belt
Stretch a pelt, catch a smelt
Baling twine keeps this old world spinning 'round.

Well, I was driving one dark rainy night
Not another soul in sight
When suddenly a deer steps into view.
I brake and swerve and hit the horn
Next thing I know my truck's airborne
And I'm repentin' for things I didn't even do.

Now friends you might not believe this part
But swear to Pete and cross my heart
Just as I'm beginin' my decline
Right out my driver side window
A creature in a UFO
Appears and motions to my baling twine.

Which of course is sitting on the dash
So I toss him one end and lash
The other 'round my truck in record time.
Then he gives me a big thumbs up
And tows me like some astral pup
Safely back to earth on baling twine.

(It could happen)

Well, I leap out and kiss the mud
Hug the neck of my new bud
We toast the lucky stars and talk in mime.
But friends what really steals the show
And flat makes his antennas glow
Is when I give him a piece of baling twine.

There's no moral to this tale
No deep insights to regale
Just a few suggestions you might keep in mind.
Watch for deer on rainy nights
Stick to planes when making flights
And always, always, carry baling twine.

It'll close a gate
Hold your bait
Fasten on your license plate
Tow a sled
Lace a Ked
Hang your deer in the shed
Keep your 'mater plants
And your pants from falling down.

It'll fix a cinch in a pinch
Let your stirrups out an inch
Double as a fan belt
Stretch a pelt, catch a smelt

Tie your turkey legs together
Pitch a tent in any weather
Make a leash for your lizard
Save your family in a blizzard
Hang a wreath, knit a sweater
Floss your teeth, nothing's better
Than baling twine.

Whoa, Whoa, baling twine

When your hanging in the brink
When your running out of luck
The solution might be right there
On the dashboard of your truck
Hey, baling twine
Just a little piece of baling twine.

Always, always, carry baling twine
Hey, always, always, carry baling twine.

You can listen to the song here. Just scroll down and click on the Segment 2 link. The song starts at about 19:25 minutes in on RealPlayer.


Quick off-topic comment: Jumping online from home is making me dizzy. The library connection was so slow I expected to hear the following while I waited, "All our modems are busy. Please hold for the next available modem. All connection will be made in the order in which they were received. Thank you."

Colleen Shannon Back Online

Doing my happy dance.

Last week we were informed (after we had been told one to seven days) that we would not be online until tomorrow (day eight) and that we were to give customer service a call on that date so they could walk my husband through the new set-up. This morning I turned on the computer to see if the DSL connection was working and got a green light. My husband called the company and fortunately got someone who, after checking and finding out that we were not scheduled to be hooked-up again until tomorrow, said she would walk him through the new set-up today. Thank you, you wonderful person.

Day Six

And here I am completely surrounded by no Internet!


But I do have the Denver Post to read where I found this in yesterday's paper. Proof that the Taliban is not the only group of religious wackos out there. Why do images of small children in KKK sheets and tiny Hilter SS uniforms flash through my mind as I peruse these pages?