Theme Thursday

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a day late and a dollar short for participating in Theme Thursday but honestly?  I couldn't think of anything to write about that had the bottle theme.  When I think of bottles, I think of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" and liquor and booze and stuff like that.

I had a 2nd cousin (still do as he's still alive) who liked his likker.  Whenever Cousin Harold finished a bottle of whatever it was he drank, he would take the empty bottle out to the back yard and plant the empty bottle in the dirt so that about half the bottle would be above ground.  He called it his "Bottle Garden."  When we were little kids and would go over to Uncle Steve and Aunt Sylvia's house, where Cousin Harold still lived even though he was an adult, we thought that bottle garden was just the neatest thing EVER.  I'm sure my Aunt & Uncle were probably not as amused by the bottle garden as us kids were.

And since we're on the subject of bottles, since that IS the theme this week, when Thing 2 was just a tyke, I allowed her to continue drinking from a bottle way, way past the time she should have given it up (12 years old is too old, right?) but she just LOVED her "Baba."  Baba was her security blanket and Best Friend in the Whole World.  Whenever she needed comforting or was upset or tired, she would ask for Baba and then she and Baba would have some quiet time and everything would be ok in her world.  In our house, Baba was not an inanimate object; Baba was a Member of the Family.  One day, she couldn't find Baba and I listened to her going from room to room, calling out "Baba!" in a worried voice.  She ended up in the backyard, standing in the middle of the patio and did her best Stanley Kowalski imitation but instead of crying out, "Stella!" it was "Baba!" that was her cry of despair.

Baba was eventually allowed to retire to the old Bottle Home.  Several years later, Thing 2 was looking for something in a cabinet and I heard a little cry of surprise and then she said, with affection, "Baba."  A little sigh and then she closed the cabinet door and walked away with a happy little smile and memories of Baba.
 

Kudos, Accolades and that $%&*! computer

Let's start with the kudos and accolades, shall we?

First off, I want to thank Loyal Follower/Reader Lo for giving me my first ever "Beautiful Blogger Award" nomination.  My little blog has never been nominated for anything, except perhaps a Debbie Downer award the way things have been going lately, so this is a delightful surprise for me.  And it took several days before I knew about it because I hadn't read my comments because I didn't know I had any comments until I went to edit a post and saw that I had comments!  I finally figured out how to be notified when someone leaves a comment so I can comment back to the comments left in the comments section.  Let's see, I used the word "comment(s)" 8 times! 

Next up is a couple of Atta Boys for Thing 1, my son Thing 1. Whose real name isn't Thing 1.  That's just the name I use when I refer to him on the World Wide Interweb.  His real name is Mr. Pinko.  Ok, it's not but that IS the name I use the most here at home.  And when I've used it in front of his cronies, much snickering ensued.  We're real big on nicknames in this family, lemme tell you. Mr. Pinko, Little Mama, Gypsy, Cuppers are just a few of the names we answer to around here.  Anyway, back to my First Born.


Behold!  The AMA District 37 Lightweight II Enduro and Best of the West Champion for 2009:

 

And his crutches.  He doesn't leave home without them. 

But wait!  There's more!  On Monday, an envelope arrived in the mail.  When I saw that it was from California State University Enrollment Services and that it was a rather thin envelope, my heart sank a bit.  This was the only college that Thing 1 had applied to and the sight of "The Skinny Envelope" wasn't looking good.  Back in the day, when you were accepted to a college, you got a big packet.  This was Not.  TheManTheMyth and I were holding it up to the light and trying to read what it said because we would NEVER open mail addressed to our children but we have no qualms about trying to squint through the address window.  Thing 1 gets home from school and I solemnly hand him the envelope and tell him, "I don't think you got in."  He gives me this "Oh, please" look, opens the envelope and I read, over his shoulder of course:  "Dear Thing 1, on behalf of the faculty, administration, etc. it is my privilege to extend to you an invitation to become part of the CSULB community for the Fall 2010 term.  Welcome to CSULB!..."

He got in!  For those who don't think this is all that big a deal, CSULong Beach had over 70,000 applicants.  That's SEVENTY THOUSAND.  I am so darn proud I could just plotz.  I squealed and grabbed him in a Mama Bear hug and he squirmed his way out of it and said, "What, you didn't think I'd get in?"  Well, I wasn't SURE.  Did I mention that there were 70,000 applicants?  Now, we just have to come up with tuition.

Ok, happy stuff over.  Let's get back to my computer woes, shall we?  Since I really don't know a helluva lot about computers except that Macs = Good, Windows machines = Bad, I really wish I had had someone with a clear head with me when I got the news that my old laptop was terminal.  They could have told me that instead of forking out $$$ on a new laptop that turns out to be pretty much useless for what I need it for, I could have either a) just replaced my corrupted hard drive with a new one and re-loaded all my programs into it and be on my way or 2) purchased a used laptop off of eBay for a lot less $$$.  Neither of those options even occurred to me and they were definitely not suggested to me by the "doctors" at the computer store repair desk.  And to make matters worse, I left my old laptop behind to be recycled because I didn't know any better.

It's going to be hard to sit down from all the bruises on my backside from kicking myself.

But hey!  My little boy is not only a Champion, he's going to College!

Here, kvetch!

Ok, I know that my legion of followers, all 24 of them, read my blog because they are absolutely enthralled with my hilarious and witty depictions of my zany life.  Yeah.  

However, although in MY family, we actually say the word, "comma" so that when we are in the midst of conversation, we will say, "however comma."  How hilarious are we?  Now, where was I?  Oh, yes.  However, you cannot forget that the name of my blog is "Kelly's Kvetch of the Day" and sometimes, I must forgo the humorous anecdotes and return to the kvetching part.  Today is one of those times.

As I mentioned last week, my laptop got sick.  I took it to the computer hospital and the computer doctors got the crash cart and those things that you rub together and then zap your heart, what are those things called, Debillitators?  Defibrillblahblahs?  Yeah, those things.  Anyway, despite all their efforts, it was terminal and my laptop could not be saved.  And my hard drive with all of my files and programs I need for my job?  Yeah, they couldn't be saved either.  I lost everything.

So I call TheManTheMyth from the computer store tell him the good news, that we have to spend more money that we can't afford to spend on a new laptop so that I can continue to do my job and I swear I heard him whimper and he tells me go ahead, we don't really have much choice.

I buy a cheap laptop, since I really don't need bells and whistles and jing-tinglers.  I just need memory, Microsoft Office and a CD-ROM drive.  Oh, and an external hard drive so I can save my files so that when this laptop crashes, and it will because these things AREN'T Apple products, I won't have to start from scratch all over again.

So I get home with my shiny new laptop and I go to install the scoring program I have to use and it won't work.  I can't install the program.  The program that is the reason I bought a Windows machine instead of the far superior Apple machine I would have much rather have but this scoring program is not Mac-compatible.

And, as it turns out, it's not Windows 7-compatible, either.  Seriously.  This scoring program I have to use was developed back in the days of floppy diskettes and it has not kept up with Windows technology which has not kept up with Apple technology and can you tell I'm pro-Mac all the way?  

I have been informed there *might* be a way to get this program to work on my oh-so-advanced and wonderful Windows 7 laptop but it involves jumping through burning hoops during the light of a blue moon while a herd of baby zebras go running through my bedroom on their way to the Ho Chi Minh trail.  But it will take a couple of weeks before we know if it can be done, putting me oh, a month or two behind in my work and this is a job that you have to stay on top of.

So yeah, I'm more than just a little bit pissed and frustrated, not to mention BROKE.  And I can't do my work.  And I have a raging case of PMS which is NOT helping matters.


Oy.