Dream Deferred

 I confess to fooling around today watching videos

about things that go bump in the night... But earlier, I was diligent enough to fix a roast and accessories, only to find that when I'd unplugged the skillet, the cook pot got half unplugged. Thus, a "cool" roast, hard potatoes and onions, and stiff carrots.... Glad we agreed we didn't want to eat in the middle of the night (i.e. 3 a.m.) and to make quick fixin's.

The above seems uneventful and without drama, but true to my nature, the discovery that nothing had been cooked was crushing. Since I resort to practical prayer practices, things got straightened out in a hurry.

As for the roast, as Scarlett proclaimed, tomorrow is another day!

Then, the Printer

 I was going to exclaim with great joy that I got a printer that actually works! Except, it doesn't. Because: 1) It says it can't find my printer, and goes on and on, saying it can't find it, and 2) I can't even figure out where the paper is inserted. Why can't our conveniences be simplified, so we can just attach them and turn them on. Is it too much to ask? Dovetailing this for tomorrow.

• Okay, I once read a book that said I should get six things done each day. I only got one thing done. I don't think I'm premature in saying...I CONNECTED THE PRINTER! I even called Best Buy, waited through many Christmas Carols, and they thought maybe there was something defective with the computer, but understood why I wanted to avoid coming in unnecessarily. So as a result of that conversation, I resorted to HP to ask them why it wasn't connecting. I really don't know how I got it connected, but it is...Yay!

  
  

  
  

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First, the Computer

 Time to vent. We got our new server connected, and it looked good.

The guy even waited awhile, but not long enough. I turned on my PC only to find it didn't work anymore. All my other devices did, but not my PC. (The funny part was the installer was amazed at how many devices we had for just two people, and was somewhat amused at my "travel-size" laptop, which works rather clumsily. I didn't tell him I was the one who ran them all.) I wasted several hours in the afternoon "chatting" only to be informed that it must be my PC, whereas I insisted my PC was fine. People who know me know it takes a lot for me to cry, but Bill found me in tears after all this. After waiting for awhile, he decided to get a computer guy. "All's well that ends well." A computer guy is coming tomorrow more in line with our actual "awake" hours. I hadn't suffered too much as I went to bed earlier and slept through the night, (probably because I'm used to getting up for puppy sitting.) but Bill had been walking around sort of unconscious in the early morning. The sleep apparently focused him better than I could focus.

Fred of the Neighborhood

 Bill called me to the living room to see a documentary of Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers covered everything: racism, assassinations, divorce, death, etc. He would have had a field day with these last four years. I could just hear him saying to the kids. You know, some people lie like they breathe, presidents, his supporting "news" channels, and they hang on to power, even when they've lost the election....Then, lame Donald duck would get on Twitter and blast the beloved icon, because Donnie considers no one sacred, not even the Pope.

Universal Grandma

 At Aldi's, some girl wearing an ornate mask,

came behind me, and I nearly jumped to the ceiling as she exclaimed, "You won't believe this, but you look just like my grandmother, and since I shop for her, I wondered why she was in the store without telling me!" I replied, "No, it's just me," and I added "I've heard people tell me that before." This is true, I'm pegged as somebody's look-alike grandma by a couple neighbors in the neighborhood. If people had said this to me 30 years ago, I would have been depressed. But since I AM a grandmother, that's okay.

Mouse Mystery

 Bill had a conversation with a mouse

in the foyer last night. He told him he really should go out (as he opened the door for him); Otherwise, he would have to kill him. But the mouse just looked at him and scurried off to his corner. The creature should have taken heed, because Bill came home with new rodent poison today.

His fondness for mice began when he was a kid. A lady who rented from his father lived upstairs, and they couldn't figure out from where the mice were coming. This kept his mother busy setting traps, while Bill played with his little ships on an oblong rug. As mice scurried over the imaginary "water", he adopted them as his "passengers". Finally, when the nurse left the apartment, he and his dad went up to check and possibly, clean. The latter was a strong possibility, as the former tenant had stacks of garbage all over the house, none of which had been disposed during her entire stay. Mystery solved.

So there you have it; this is why he took the time to be polite to a mouse.

Old Age is Hell

 Ma Fortney used to say, "When you're old, you're so much trouble to yourself." She also had a sign up that said, "Don't floss all your teeth, just the ones you want to keep." But she didn't tell me that when you're old, you might forget just which teeth you flossed half way through, so you have to start out all over again.