Message in a bottle

Yesterday, I telephoned FIU to see if our computer had been looked at, yet. They replied: Monday, probably, maybe. They take them in order that they come in. I knew that. Really I did.

So Monday, I will not hope for too much.

I did find out that I can copy and enlarge our crosswords at the library. This is convenient because I had an origami class there, today. I made an inflate-able frog. I will not tell you where we had to blow into it to inflate it.

From the library, with love . . .

Commission, as in out of

I still love the internet. I just don't love my computer right now. it is in for repair. It has betrayed my trust. Luckily, I didn't trust it too much, I have backup!

This is from a library computer and this message will not be repeated. Probably.

B-day to youuuu . . .

Happy Birthday to T in Lake Ci-T.

Go-onn. Figa dout.

T is also still counting decades on fingers. No toes for him either.

Hope he has a superb birth-day, -week, -month, -year.

Us, too . . .

More, more, more . . .

Today, we used up the last of 2008's hurricane supplies. I had forgotten about the cans of chicken and turkey in the pantry. They were behind several taller items. That's my excuse, anyway.

When the cans were opened and the liquid pressed out, the odor produced a siren call for Mew. The fluid from water-pack, canned chicken is the only human food she is allowed to beg for. She knows it is hers. Entitlement, today thy name is cat.

I told her to up-up-up and she sat up with her front paws out for balance and waited.

After she finished her canned-chicken water, she looked like she had swallowed a ball.

We are living with a chicken-water-monster.

Weather cat . . .

Generally, one or another of us is at home. Mew is used to that status. According to her view, at least one of us should be in the house so that if she wishes to rub by an opportune ankle, she can find it immediately.

Yesterday, the worst happened. We all went out for lunch during the same time that there was the possibility of showers in our vicinity. We did not encounter more than sprinkles. Evidently, however, there was thunder within the acute hearing range of a lone cat. When we looked for her upon coming back, we found her in her safest place.

A back nook of BigEd's closet . . .

What Valentine's day means in terms of chocolate, flowers and jewelry . . .

The hibiscus and the some of the roses bloomed especially in honor of Valentine's day. Russell Stover sugar free has paid me a visit in honor of Valentine's day. (Thank you BigEd.)

The day before Valentine's day means that we have entered that part of the year when J is older than I am.

And, did you get taken to a jewelry store? Me neither. Must be the state of the economy . . .

Last minute early preparations . . .

J is entering a new decade today. Not saying how many. We are still counting them on fingers - not using toes, yet.

I was so pleased that the gift shopping was done early. Well, early for me equals last week. BigEd and I went together to do it and we even got the festive packaging during the same trip. Late last evening I had a brainstorm and realized we did not have B-day cards.

So this morning, verrrry early, I went and got them. Our nearest supermarket carries Hallmark and the selection wasn't too limited.

Now, if we can just get them signed before J wakes up . . .

What a long arm can bring in . . .

Our study hall, in high school (way back in time), was a huge double or triple sized classroom with row on rank of desks. After we well-behaved and respectful students (the foregoing is subject to edit by time and memory) had completed our take-home assignments, we still had to be silent and let others work. This was a fine theory which was backed up by the possibility of detention after school at the pleasure of the teacher who was our guardian for the period.

Then, as now, I had a boredom threshold that required me to carry around a book that I could crack open and dive into for the duration. Any duration. It was a dire situation to finish a book and still have half of study hall left to endure.

I was situated in a fine place in the hall. I was on the right side, outermost row as one faced the front. This put me within a long arm's reach of a bookshelf mounted along the wall which also bore the pencil sharpener. And one afternoon, after enduring as much as five minutes of having finished my library book, I reached out my relatively long arm and hooked the closest book I could reach. It was bound in dry and cracking leather with a gold imprint on the spine that was almost worn away from handling.

Carefully avoiding the eye of the teacher up front who might have seen me, I opened Rudyard Kipling's "Soldiers Three." That half hour was the most fleeting I could recall. When the bell rang to end this last class of the day, I kept on reading. After a few minutes, I took my treasure to the front desk and asked if the books along the wall were available to be taken home.

Yes, I was told, they belonged to the teacher and were put there to be read by students who wanted to do exactly that. One at a time could be taken. Only one.

She had Under the Deodars, Plain Tales from the Hills, Wee Willie Winkie, The Jungle Books, Stalky and Co. and more. Most of Kipling's works were on the shelf along that wall and I read them during the semester. I fell in love with the English schoolboy, the English fighting man, the English officer, and the law of the pack. I wished to have named our black cat Bagheera instead of Midnight.

I hated the woman in Baa Baa Black Sheep. I learned years later that the events in that tale were based on some of Kipling's own childhood experiences when his parents sent him back to England at the age of six.

It was a semester of revelations. I believe I learned as much from that chance encounter with Mr. Kipling as from my Physics textbook.

I know it was more fun . . .

Win some, win some . . .

Today, I revisited a fact that I had forgotten. The NY Times best seller list is the source of our local library's website list of best sellers.

Sometimes, as today, a book appears on the Times' list before the library list updates. I know this one will be in high demand. Enjoying Bernard Cornwell's books is not a solitary pastime.

Today, Agincourt which is the latest entry in Cornwell's Saxon series popped up on the Times' list and my name popped up shortly thereafter as number six on the library's reserve list.

Score!

Sunbathing taken to new level . . .

It must be true that to find the most comfy spot in the house, join the cat. Since the winter weather started to find its feet and stand up to be counted, Mew has taken to sunbathing at the south-facing, back patio doors. She gets between the curtains and the glass to bake.

When she has soaked up more BTUs than are probably safe, she joins us poor souls who are too dim to understand the joys of the sunbath . She trudges toward us, drunk with heat and the need to sleep it off, throwing herself down on her cooler side. She turns into a puddle of fur with some legs and a limp tail.

She revives slowly if we are talking or doing anything she finds entertaining. Sometimes she seeks the perfect spot near the edge of the back drapes and lets the radiated heat soothe her to sleep. There is less drama to this method and, being a cat, she seems to prefer the searing bake of sun through glass.

I wish we humans had her ability to turn into a boneless puddle. What a stress reliever . . .

More tile than a bathroom . . .

Our Comcast digital signal didn't like the freezing weather either. I couldn't sleep Wednesday night and got up to watch television. The picture was tiling so badly that I finally called and made an appointment for a tech to come see it/ fix it, in the afternoon.

Nearly 3 a.m., when I went to sleep, it was still acting up. When I woke up, it was fine so I canceled the visit from the tech. As the afternoon chilled, occasional tiling flirted with the picture again. The sound tended to come and go, briefly.

Today it is warmer and the pix and sound are fine again. Like ourselves, Comcast is a hothouse flower . . .

Squeak, squeak . . .

The university from which I retired, and which allowed me to retain my email privileges, has come through again, with banners flying.

They are migrating to a new email platform. When I contacted them some months ago about how to comply with their new rules, they discovered that I was no longer in the computer system. My info was archaic (I could have told them that) and had not been migrated to a newly established system. I no longer had an ID number. I didn't seem to exist, for them.

I did, however, still have contacts within the University. Powerful contacts, evidently. Because I now am in the computer system, I have been issued an ID number, and feel a valid community member again.

I also received an email, today, addressed to retirees of the institution, which sets forth ex-act-ly how to move to the new email system along with the date parameters for getting it done.

I am a squeaky wheel. I gots da grease . . .

The snack bowl . . .

Yes. We did. Watch yesterday. The Bowl was indeed Super.

After it was over, I told J that if we had a more personal interest in the game, if our home team had played, we would have felt completely wrung out. As it was, I seemed inclined to help on each play, no matter who had the ball.

Yes, the Steelers deserved to win. And yes, the Cardinals soared like eagles. I loved them both after it was over . . .