Marta and the Internet
For several weeks now, in the case of our internet access, download speeds, upload speeds and what have you, we’ve been in a world of hurt. Finally, today Mark-the-Magician was sent by CenturyLink to have a look at our wiring, inside and outside. And now, once again, all is right with the world. The reason for major meltdowns at our house and in many other places on the coast was the hot weather we had a few weeks ago. Apparently, the temperatures in some of the equipment kiosks reached 140° — enough to cause major damage and fall-out. As in lucky us! (Oh. And did I mention the dead bats? None in any of Mark’s kiosks but, apparently, a problem in others. Heat prostration.)
Somehow, listening to the woes of the internet infrastructure put me in mind of “My Fair Lady” and “the gin what did her in.” So with apologies to Eliza Doolittle and Company, who knew it would be the heat what done in our internet service? “We just don’t expect heat like that here on the coast,” Mark said, “so we don’t have air conditioners in the kiosks.” Understandable.
Little Brown Bats — Heat Sensitive
I was pleased to see that Marta — who is here visiting from the SF Bay Area — was incensed that the problem can’t be solved. “But why not?” she insisted. “If you were in a city area, it would have been fixed long ago.” I tried to explain that that’s the point exactly. “We are rural-to-the-max and there’s no way we’ll ever have enough population (read: money) to warrant correcting this issue.”
“But that’s so unfair,” she said. “Welcome to our world, said I. “You’ve got PG&E where you live; we have CenturyLink…”
I don’t know exactly what magic Mark performed, but within a trice I was able to turn in the last of my Vespers article for day-after-tomorrow’s paper. I hope it wasn’t too late…
According to my Kuzzin Kris, the best part of watermelons are the black seeds. “These wimpy seedless watermelons are no fun at all,” she told me not too long ago. That’s because the entire point of watermelons are the seed-spitting contests! Which she also believes every kid should learn about before they start losing their teeth.
Now it seems a bit late. And besides, we usually don’t have a choice — seedless is it. Last night we saved all the rinds for this morning’s chicken treats. They gave a few desultory pecks and followed me back to the house. Hoping for cracked corn. Can’t say I blame them. It’s probably a sweet versus savory thing and they definitely prefer the cracked corn and meal worms over watermelon.
When four-year-old Christian Hawes told his his Uncle Dick, “It’s not the long-agos that are hard to remember; it’s the short-agos” I knew exactly what he meant. But Christian is older now — maybe in his late thirties? — and we might be a bit older, too. Though I hate to admit it, the long-agos and short-agos are beginning to blend together.
How slim we all were way back then! How un-gray and how lithe and athletic. And energetic! For the most part, Nyel and I did the work ourselves. We laid out the courts, put up the tent (loaned each year by Noreen Robinson), schlepped the champagne (donated yearly by Jack’s), sent out the invitations, registered the teams, asked friends to be judges and my uncle Willard to act as Master of Ceremony. Whatever non-profit was the beneficiary was asked to provide finger foods (always fabulous!) and the guests (who had each donated $20 toward the benefitting non-profit) came in whatever they deemed was an appropriate croquet costume. The setting was my folks’ place (now ours) in Oysterville and, often, Willard and Louise Espy hosted a potluck picnic at their Red Cottage afterwards.
Sadly, one of the scrapbooks will probably have to be discarded. It was the victim of a 1992 water heater disaster and, though I plan to work on it a bit, I don’t know if it will be worth turning over to the Heritage Museum with the others. Some long-agos will just have to be remembered without benefit of visual aids! Perhaps, if Christian’s theory was correct, the longer we wait, the better we will recall those badly damaged 1994-1996 years… We can but hope!
Doncha hate it when you see something online for just a fleeting moment and then you can’t find it again? That happened to me recently when I was trying to Google something on my cell phone. Up popped a rather confused collage which seemed to be headed with a misspelling of my name — SYNDEY STEVENS (in big blue letters) — followed by excerpts from my various Oysterville Daybook entries.
And, the bigger question is: what besides the spelling of my name was changed? As a writer interested in history, I would like to feel that my blogs will “forever” be available from out there in cyberspace as they were written. Not that I haven’t made mistakes of my own — some of which I’ve managed to correct, but probably not all. But, I don’t like to think that someone is messing with my words as well as with my name.
Sometime priorities fall into place without much thought at all. Yesterday was a fine example. And, it’s not that I have second thoughts about the choices we made, nor any regrets. Not exactly, anyway.
I indulged myself in the purchase of a few unmentionables not long ago — actually, these days, I think mentioning them might be old hat, so to speak. Boy-cut underpants. Very cute; very comfy. But after the second or third wearing/washing, my favorite pair began to unravel — right at the crotch!
Which again makes me wonder. How can the items on the Frederick’s of Hollywood site (and probably a gazillion others) pass muster when I see that friends on FaceBook have been taken down for the most innocent of word choices — apparently misunderstood by the watchers and censors.
