An Evening to Remember

Yesterday. A December day at 75 degrees! Great for setting up our new computer that arrived in the afternoon. Around 6:15 p.m. Michael gulped down his dinner in record time and within a minute, I heard boxes being ripped open and a lot of action in the den. I am so different than he. It might take me longer to get the job done, but I'm more methodical and I also pay attention to details. Nothing would get lost or damaged and the installation instructions would be in plain view. Meanwhile, I hear, "Mare? Where's the keyboard?"

Here's a mental picture of Michael. He's very Italian and thick. Not fat. His round head sits on top of his shoulders, hiding his 20 inch neck. His hands look like baseball mitts and his fingers resemble Jimmy Dean pork sausages - ring size 15.5. All of his fingers are exactly the same size of each other and when he raises one finger, they all raise, which makes it very difficult for him to use more than one finger to type on the keyboard, let alone holding onto a screw or nail to save his life.

Within a few minutes, I walked into the mess he made. Boxes and packing materials covered the floor and black power cords strewn everywhere brought a snake pit to my mind. He had stuffed himself under the desk to unhook the old desk-top computer from the modem and emerged, walking back and forth, kicking boxes around, slipping and sliding on the user manual and other literature that I would have placed neatly on the desk, ready for use.

After misplacing a few more things (including the computer), he powered up the new lap top and found some installation disks. The installation prompts were in a size 3 font and neither of us could read the monitor without pressing our faces up to it, adjusting our eyeglasses, and cursing. Soon after, we got sick and tired of getting messages that contained the words, "unable to". After at least five tries, we got the remote keyboard and mouse to work. Then the big daddy message of all greeted us - the one that makes your hair rise on the back of your neck - the dreaded "unable to establish internet connection". Suddenly, I realized that Chloe's and Bella's stink bombs permeated the room and I had to get out of there. Since I was only the assistant, Michael called our internet provider and I poured a glass of wine.

Two hours later, he is stuffed under the desk again examining the connections. Our internet provider, Time Warner, blamed it all on Dell. After a 30-minute wait time on the phone, we finally made connection with a Dell technician who sounded exactly like William Hung (of American Idol fame). Really! I held the phone while William told me to tell Michael to disconnect the power. Michael was becoming very irritated by then, especially being stuffed under a desk in the darkness. I repeated to Michael, "He said disconnect all of the power sources." Michael yelled back, "I DID! SEE? THE LIGHTS ARE OUT!" Ok, I sometimes wonder how these techies deal with idiots like us. They are either on medication or enjoy laughing their asses off all the way home. In a fit of uncontrolled frustration, Michael shook the modem and all of the cords as if they were a hopelessly tangled mess of Christmas lights. I stood there watching in disbelief with my eyes wide. That was it. He disconnected the phone line and William was gone and I didn't even get to say goodbye.

An hour later, we had internet restored. Taking your time with connections and ports really helps save time and sweat but I don't think Michael will ever realize that. One more call to Time Warner Cable to help with our Outlook set up and we were finished. Nearly midnight to bed. Tonight I'll find out what other problems we might have.

Yesterday was worth a walk in the park. I left the office earlier than usual and stopped by one of the ponds on the way home and enjoyed the view in the warm sunshine.

The Koi did flips when they saw me and opened their mouths wide. They hadn't been fed for a few weeks since the nights are still quite chilly. Today, I treated them to some wheat germ pellets.

It was a great day that started to go awry at that very moment... After photographing the Koi, I walked into the front of the house and found Chloe standing in the foyer with the bright western sun illuminating her silky coat, and, a thick, nasty, chin-to-floor string of yellow bile saliva. It glistened in the sun but I didn't have it in me to power the camera. I had work to do.