Computer Driven

Fixed at last.

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There was no fight in me at all. Usually when my computer refuses to work, I’m right there, sticking with it until I get it to work again. This time I knew G’s three-computer network was beyond my ken. I didn’t give up, not me, I turned it over and moved on to something I could handle…the disaster of my computer room.

Around here, if you add one piece of art to a room it throws everything off balance until you rehang all the art so the room works again. Ditto furniture. Last year, G rearranged the computer room which took away a wall, and then he built me my sewing table…thank heavens it has rollers. The bookcase went down and the little chest at the bottom of the stairs came up to wander the rooms homelessly. I like that little chest a lot. Not only was it my grandma Maude’s, it also is a charming high Victorian piece with Lincrusta-Walton * handles. It also holds semi-useful linens of the collectable kind.

So, gently not to make my stretched tendons and damaged soft tissues worse, I inched the dresser to the middle of the room, inched the bookcase to the wall, cleaned up the bottom of half my closet, cleaned off the bookcase shelves – both sides, and created stacks of “stuff” that need solutions.

Wadda mess.

The achoo factor wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but the trivia factor was humongous. I was courageous, strong, dedicated, and determined. Did I need this? Did I use this? Mold? Throw it out or put it in the sunshine. What’s this? Used last in 1998? Out it went. Twenty boxes of floppy discs? What’s on them? Find out how to find out. Pile one. Pile two…the new camera info. Gotta read all this before the start of the baseball season.

Don’t you have days like this? My life caught up to me.

By the time G came home, surfaces were organized, the bookcase against the wall, and a decision made about the chest…bedroom, hiding part of the bookcase temporarily. We visited Duck and consumed dinner before moving upstairs to confront the computers and the piles. By the time you could say abracadabra, G solved the problem….the router wasn’t working, and the mess was reduced to one pile all by itself. The floppy discs.

When G bought an older business computer to act as an outside, backup hard drive, none of us appreciated the fact that it had a floppy disk drive. While G sorted through what he could on his floppy drive….which didn’t want to be used, I popped things in that little back up computer to copy and save.

There we could see small grandkids cavorting on the beach. Here was a graduation. There was a thin daughter, here a trip, there a view I had forgotten. Aids Quilt memories here, hugs saved there, and smiles everywhere the future unknown. Magic, that. Sometimes a little magic is all that’s needed to stir up a clean computer room.

Maybe tomorrow that upcoming rainy day, I will look at Zip Discs on my external Zip drive?

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• Lincrusta-Walton: Mary Lou Davis says in her article about Roseland Cottage that in the 1880's, Lincrusta Walton was, “a newly patented wall covering that imitated richly tooled and gilded leather. These coverings, called Lincrusta-Walton for inventor Fredrick Walton, were an offshoot of the linoleum industry and were made of wood pulp and linseed oil. The mixture was hardened to a semi-rigid state and then roller-embossed to create designs in shallow relief. The pliable coverings were then backed with jute and decorated either at the manufacturing plant or after installation.”



• In San Diego, you can see excellent examples of Lincrusta-Walton on the walls and ceilings of The Villa Montazuma.

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Duck: He was out and about in the building yesterday rolling from his room to the main door several times.

Me: Was a very, very, good me. Lunch with the Old Grey Poet’s Society. I ate Marion B’s diabetic diet. She took charge. Third day of small amount of Yoga, third day of meditation, fourth day off antibiotics and back vastly better, and a poem started instigated by the brilliance of a seventh grade visitor to the Poets group.

G: The dentist is not back from his vacation until next week. He bit his cheek twice during dinner and was not a happy camper.

Weather: 60 for the high. 44 for the low. No rain last night. Rain today....they say.

WW: The WW bot still not sending me all the info I need. I can tackle that today now that I am back online. Dinner baked stuffed potatoe made with 2 tbsp fake sour cream, zucchini, green onion, and one slice no fat cheese. Tossed green salad. Sorbet bar. 8 points.