Thursday, January 26, 2006

Missing parts of my brain

The good thing about having a laptop computer with high speed access and your own blog is that you have extra processing capacity and storage….outside one’s own feeble brain. If I want to remember something, I send myself an e-mail. If I want to think something through, I blog. If I want to touch base with someone I love, there is always e-mail. If I need to expand my horizons, Google is there for me. My computer and the internet are vital links to a whole wide world beyond the small, sometimes parochial, town where I live and work.

Oh, the sadness! Oh, the woe! that piles on day after day of constrained, restricted, intermittent internet access. Some people find e-mail a burden; for me, it is a lifeline. But entropy is the way of the electronic world as of every world, and we have been down, disconnected, debilitated and depressed at home and at the office for about ten days. Not sequentially, but intermittently, and that is almost worse.

Today, Saint Keith and his acolyte Chris came to visit at the office and at home, and I do honestly believe that the wireless networks are working. Going to work. Soon. Really. I believe it.

Technical glitch begat dark cloud, which the radio signal could not penetrate. It’s mythical and mystical, and—-we trust—-it is almost beaten.

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, back in dogland. Toby continues to grieve for Max, as we all do, but it is Toby’s job to carry emotion in our little mixed-species family. I honestly do not believe that Toby wants to be the number one dog. He wants Cassie to take on that role, but he knows she is still growing into it. It’s transition time here on our Vermont hillside. We are getting better, getting older, decaying and exploding, all at the same time.

1 comment:

Mary Beth said...

Isn't the whole pecking order thing fascinating? When 19 year old head cat Bill died a year ago, the next oldest cat was clearly not in the running for top of the heap. The remaining male cat, Gus, was deemed too young although plenty large enough by the middle-aged cat of the three. So it is that Deirdre became number one. I think there are many times that she wishes she wasn't and she certainly isn't the same leader of the herd that Bill was although I do see her exert her influence sometimes. Interestingly the eldest of the three has taken up the 11pm calling that Bill once did. I have to remember to ask the vet about this. I always took it that Bill was calling out -- 11pm, I'm looking around and everything's ok.