Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Broken Technology. Torqued Tails. Nathan.

Technology-wise, this has not been a great week.

About a week ago, Sarah’s computer lost its ability to go online. A couple days later my (dearly beloved) camera broke. Then today I was trying to plug Sarah’s computer directly into the modem thingie to see if it would go online that way. (It wouldn’t.) In the process of plugging, unplugging and re-plugging, I obviously committed an egregious technological sin that was unforgivable by the Internet Powers That Be because now I am suddenly unable to go online with MY computer!

So.

I’m writing this blog entry at home on my laptop; in a little while, I’ll drive over to the church to access the Internet and post the entry there.

I love technology but sometimes it really gets my goat!

And speaking of goats, after being diagnosed with a “torqued tail” yesterday, Snowy is feeling a bit better today. (I know, I know. Goats have nothing in common with Snowy but I just felt like throwing a non sequitor at you.)

We have him on pain meds, which are doing pretty well at keeping him comfortable. Our biggest challenge at the moment though is not stepping on the Official Snowy Tail. Which normally points up. And is now pointing down. In fact, it’s not just pointing down, it’s actually dragging the ground. And since he has a habit of shadowing my footsteps whenever I cook, I am attempting to adopt the (unaccustomed) graceful, flowing movements of a ballerina in my fervent maneuverings to avoid Snowy’s own personal tail.

Here are a few (archived, pre-torqued) shots of the Torqued-Tail Dog and his Assorted Untorqued Two Siblings.

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Um. May I just make one little teensy comment about how handsome, wonderful, marvelous and amazing that I think that fellow in the above picture is?

And may I just say that I really just sort of like him? Quite a lot?

You know, he and Sarah have caused me to love just about everything about being a mom--except for one little ol’ thing. The one horrid part of being a mom is that eventually those small and extremely cute infants morph into toddlers, then into children, then into teens, then . . . sigh . . . into college students. And then they go away. Which seems to be what happened to this particular Smith kid.

Can you believe that this Particular Smith Kid is going to be turning twenty-one years old on September 18th?

Twenty. One.

An adult. A real live, unmitigated adult. A grown up. A man. A “used-to-be-a-kid” person.

Throughout the past six months or so, Nathan has found that being a young adult can be sort of tough. After investing a whole lot of effort, he never was able to land a summer job and now, although he’s working a few hours a week in the mailroom at college, he’s still trying to find a second job to help make up for not having had a job all summer.

And then the air conditioner on his car just quit. Which is not a big deal if you live in Maine but if you live in Florida? It’s sorta hot there.

But even with all of that going on, Nathan still had the big brother, big hearted generosity to send his little sis a card and $20 for her birthday. Do you know how much $20 is for a struggling college student? It’s a lot, that’s how much! (Nathan’s girlfriend, Meagan, also included a gift for Sarah in the card—she is a wonderfully thoughtful young lady.)

If you’ll look on the left side of the card, you can see that Nathan took the time to fill almost the entire thing with a very sweet, heartfelt message to his little sister. Sarah, Steve and I stood around the kitchen reading it and got all teary-eyed and sentimental over it.

Have I mentioned that I like him quite a lot?

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If you’d like to send Nathan a card for his Big Birthday, his address is:

Nathan Smith

Southeastern University

1000 Longfellow Blvd.

Box 1724

Lakeland, FL 33801

Well, I guess that about sums it up for today. Snowy (Torqued Tail) Smith and I are getting ready to hop in the van and pick up Sarah from school after which I’ll head on over to the church to post this blog entry.

And after that, I’ll start cooking dinner while all the while concentrating on my lovely ballet moves which will hopefully keep me from stepping all over a certain torqued tail.