Grandmas With Attitude

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Cockroaches, Black Mold & Donald Trump

A couple days ago, when the sky fell down and broke the world, I cried. Don’t you hate it when old women cry? It’s unattractive. But even when my skin sac still fit, long before there was room inside its folds for me and a close friend--I was an ugly crier. My face puffs right up around my eyes, making them look like two, tiny blue sinkholes sitting above an unsightly, snotty nose. I stopped crying when I turned 50, convinced that if I couldn’t cry pretty at 25, I’d look scary crying after half a century. Needless to say, I’ve avoided mirrors since we lost our fucking minds last Tuesday and made Donald Trump President-Elect of the United States of America.

Believe it or not, before last Tuesday, I said little about Trump. I felt a lot of perplexing emotions, but was reluctant to examine them. Ironically, I should have known better; I’m a retired mental health professional--we like to explore our feelings, trace their origins and understand their significance. And perhaps I would have done those things if my Trump-related emotions had remained perplexing instead of changing into something far more sinister. There wasn’t and warning. I went to bed one night, a civilized, reasonably intelligent woman of advancing age with excellent social skills, and woke up the next morning, hating the bombastic fucker and wishing he was dead. Being the courageous old woman I am, I’ve decided to tell the world how I really feel, right here in my blog.

Fortunately the last sentence above is a crock. Technically, anyway. You see, this is not your typical blog. This is a secret blog. I have a readership of exactly one (1). That would be me. Seems my self-promotion skills are truly dismal. My blog is one-year-old today (I know that because tumblr sent me a birthday card) and I have yet to publish a single link promoting it. I have another blog, as well. It’s on Word Press or World Press--one of those. It’s a secret, too. As is my Face Book Author’s Page; I’ve had that for nearly two years and 12 people “Like” it. Then there’s my Website. Yep, I got one of them, too. I can’t even find it--can’ t remember the address. True story.

I know I’ve wandered off subject. I’ll get back to Trump shortly; consider this a brief intermission. Or commercial? I want to remind my readers--again, that would be me--about my books. I’ve written three fiction and one nonfiction. But I don’t simply write them; I rewrite them. Then I re-rewrite them. And once they’ve been re-rewritten, I write them yet again. It’s a vicious writing cycle. When God was messing with my DNA, why couldn’t he have given me the gene for plumbers instead of the gene for writers? I would love to get up in the morning, all excited about finding a clogged toilet to unplug. My plunging skills are pretty good. But instead, I spend my days chasing words--mostly adjectives--all over the place, perpetually hunting for Just The Right One. (Words are elusive, slippery little bastards.)ve wandered

Now, back to Donald, the subject of tonight’s secret blog. Like Trump, I’m almost 70-years-old; unlike Trump, I’ve never hated anyone before. I hate hating. It feels as if I’ve been poisoned but instead of dying, I’ve become poisonous. And I’m so sad. I feel as if I’ve lost my country. My home. My  heart. 

[technosaurus-blog]

RIGHT ABOVE: Whoever would have guessed that someday I’d be older than Captain Kangaroo & Mr. Green Jeans? (Moose, bear & clock age well.)

ABOVE ABOVE: My favorite meme. Is that horse great or what?

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Mr. Sullivan’s Bomb: May 28, 1956

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Mr. Sullivan’s Bomb

[The following short piece is from "Elsewhere," a memoirre based on my journals. It was written sometime after I was 12 but the story itself takes place with I was six or seven, in the safety of my grandmother's living room, watching "The Ed Sullivan Show."]

         Mr. Sullivan didn't look like a movie star. He wasn't handsome like Clark Kent. I didn't like his show nearly as much as I liked "Superman." But my grandmother liked it a lot. She let me stay up past my bedtime on Sunday nights to watch it with her. I sat on floor by her big gray chair, right next to her legs until the commercials came on; then it was okay for me to be silly. Sometimes we even got to eat our strawberry ice cream in the living room on TV trays. But my grandmother got real mad at Mr. Sullivan the night he had the bomb commercial on his show. She yelled at me to go straight to my bedroom when that man's face started melting off. I told her I wanted to stay up and see it but my grandmother said it was way too scary for kids. It could make me go blind. It was against the law for kids to watch that kind of stuff. My grandmother said they would put her in jail if she let me see it.

          That bomb really was a terrible thing. It was just as scary as my grandmother said it was. Scarier even than "Superman" the time Great Caesar's ghost was haunting the chief. Even when Lois Lane figured out it wasn't really a ghost at all who was doing all that haunting--just some bank robbers pretending to be ghosts so they could steal a lot of money--I was still scared. I didn't like ghosts. But ghosts are better than bombs. I wished I never saw it explode and kill that man.  

         I already knew all about the bomb. My teacher talked about it because we had to practice what to do when one exploded on our school. We were supposed to hide under our desks and put our arms over our heads. Some of the kids cried every time we practiced hiding from the bomb. Sometimes I felt like crying, too. If a bomb exploded on our school we would all be murdered even if we were hiding under our desks. All us kids knew that. I figured the teacher knew it, too. I told her we should dig a bomb shelter under our classroom and put food and flashlights in there. She didn't think that was a very good idea--said we'd be plenty safe right under our desks. Grown up always tell lies. I hoped my teacher watched Mr. Sullivan's bomb exploding on TV. Then she'd know we needed a bomb shelter. I wanted her to be upset just like my grandmother was.

         The bomb was almost the death of my grandmother that night. I was almost the death of her a lot of times, too, but I never did see her get like that before. When I came back in the living room she was sitting on the couch with her hand over her eyes. She kept saying "oh my, oh my, oh my," over and over again. Then she got up and went straight to the telephone to call Mrs. Johnson. She was the Baptist lady who lived across the street from us. My grandmother was crying. I heard her tell Mrs. Johnson she was glad my grandfather was in his grave so he couldn't see that bomb. I didn’t like my grandmother getting upset like that but Mr. Sullivan's bomb was a bad, bad thing. It could probably even kill Superman.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: On May 27, 1956, Ed Sullivan introduced at short cartoon depicting what would happen to people in the wake of an atomic bomb. There was no warning other than a brief comment by Mr. Sullivan advising children who might still be up that it was a "fantasy," and not to get frightened. That was almost 60 years ago.] - See more at: https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Opinion/27567#sthash.26iOOz6H.dpuf

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Young Writers: “Write! Just Write!”

I wrote my first book when I was eight. It was a "Book of Important Words." I picked them out myself and spelled those words exactly the way they should be spelled. I was so proud handing my manuscript off to Mrs. Robb, my third grade teacher.  She smiled as she opened my book but the smile fell away as soon as she stared reading. The bitch actually whipped out her red pen and started correcting my spelling.

That's a true story. I don't have that book anymore but just the other day I came across some of the stories I wrote long ago, when I just knew I would be a famous writer some day. That dream was damn near hammered into my head by a woman who was as old then as I am now. She'd sit in front of the classroom, pound a wooden gavel on her desk and practically sing: "Write! Just write! About anything! About everything!" I'd like to use this blog to hammer the same message into other young heads.

I write apocalyptic science fiction. Miss Landis, gavel-pounding, 10th grade English teacher extraordinaire, used Frankenstein to demonstrate that all fiction, regardless of genre, sets the stage for social commentary by questioning cultural values and norms, opening dialogues about justice and morality, and examining the underlying concepts of good and evil. Mary Shelly’s masterpiece told the story of unpoliced science in the wake of the industrial revolution. I came to believe monsters born in the 21st Century, amidst the technological revolution, shed as much light on the ethical dilemmas of the present day as Shelley’s monster did on hers.

So any young writers reading this, I say to you: "Write! Just write! About anything! About everything!" It really doesn't matter what. Write the poem that's in your heart. Write the story you want to tell the world. Write a comic book or an essay. Write about your dog or your mother or brother, or your great uncle Fred. Just freakin' write!  I'm going to share some of my earliest writings here hoping to encourage young writers. I wrote the following story when I was in the sixth grade, years before I decided to be a writer. I had just been placed in foster care for the first time. I was terrified and felt horribly alone. The authorities had separated me and my three younger sisters and, in addition to feeling frightened and alone, I was really mad at God. Rereading Rocks 54 years later took me right back to the very day I wrote it, like magic!  

___________________________ROCKS____________________________

A long, long time ago, way before there were people, God created nine gigantic rocks and hung them in the sky. Then God went about his business of creating this and destroying that and forgot about the rocks for millions of years. When he finally got around to checking up on them again the rock God called "Earth," didn't look like his other rocks anymore. From his throne in heaven he could see that it had green stuff growing all over it. The sky all around it had turned very blue. And it looked like there were huge pools of sparkling water spreading across big parts of the rock. God was mad. All his other rocks looked like rocks were supposed to look. They were still barren and gray. He couldn’t understand what he did wrong. He thought and thought and finally figured out a way to change earth back to the way it was when He first created it.

The first chapter of the Bible tells the next part of the story. God started creating animals. He created all kinds and kept creating until he finally made one animal that He was pretty sure would solve all his problems. God named that animal "Man" and after putting him on the Earth he commanded him to go forth and multiply. Then God went back to doing other things and forgot about the rock called "Earth" and "man."

Centuries later when God went checking up on His rocks again He saw that things were lots better because Earth was looking more like his other rocks. The skies were not very blue anymore and the water covering much of Earth had stopped sparkling and the green stuff growing all over the place had disappeared or turned brown. A lot of the animals He created were already dead and all the other ones were sick. Pretty soon they would be gone and Earth would be barren and gray again, just like it was supposed to be.

God looked down from His throne in heaven and smiled.

_______________________________The End________________________

I rarely enjoy rereading my own stories. They typically make me cringe. But I think this is brilliant. I've never said that about any other thing I've ever written.

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The Ostrich & Big, Ugly, Blood-Sucking Butt Bugs

Okay, I don't deny it. I've been an ostrich, head buried in the sand, my ample ass sticking up in the air attracting big, ugly, blood-sucking butt bugs. It's a default position me and my kind resort to when faced with a computer problem: like how to turn the damn thing on. But I didn't get in this position all by myself; my kids and grandkids helped put me here.

         "Don't, mom, let me do that for you. Move. You're in my way. You don't know anything about computers."

         Well of course I don't, you airhead, you won't show me. You'd still be sucking your fucking thumb and crapping your Pampers if I had your teaching skills. Then, instead of showing me how to solve my latest computer problem, Benjamin damn near rips the desk chair out from under me, kicks me to the curb and takes over. And his sister is even worse.

         "What did you do this time, mom? Move out of the way. Hurry up! I'll show you how to fix it. Again," she sighs.

         Like her brother, Jennifer yanks me out of my chair and literally shoves me far enough away from the computer that I can't even touch it. I watch mystified as she "shows" me "how to fix it," her fingers flying across my keyboard at the speed of light, in and out of menus and programs, "explaining" every step, talking as fast as her fingers are moving. When her task is completed she smiles sweetly and informs me that I now "know" how to do whatever-the-fuck it is she's just done. I thank her sweetly as she dons her Superwoman cape, jumps out my bedroom window and flies off towards the setting sun.

         My last computer helper is my granddaughter who proves that apples really don't fall far from the tree.

         "No! Don't do that! Move, grandma, you're in the way. Don't you remember what happened the last time you tried to fix something?"

         Yeah, that really was bad. Maybe if someone explained to me how I did it, we could eliminate the threat of me doing it again?

         Chelsea is Jennifer's oldest child: my first grandchild. I love her unconditionally but it still pisses me off that my kids and grandkids must think I'm an imbecile. Is it any wonder there's so few 'sweet little old ladies' left in the world? Or dirty old men, for that matter? I don't understand why, when my big butt was up in the air, it never occurred to someone to try feeding me the instructions through my ass: an informational enema. Clearly nothing was making it to my brain in the traditional way.

_________

         I started using my Face Book account last October. My granddaughter insisted I would love Face Book six or seven years ago and signed me up. I didn't love it. By the end of the first week I had about a million friends I didn’t know. By the end of the second week I had pissed off most of my new friends as well as a couple of my real life friends. By the end of the third week I’d grown weary of apology for whatever it was I’d said wrong. When I still hadn’t figured out how I’d offended so many people by the end of the fourth week, I signed off Face Book, forgot my password two days later and never looked back. I simply prefer insulting people to their faces.

         The sad truth is, I didn't set out that October morning intending to Face Book at all. See, I go on these Googling adventures. I've Googled for years now but my Googling skills remain dismal. I rarely find what I'm searching for but usually find . . . something. That particular fall morning I was looking for a publisher. I'd just finished my third book and figured I should try to do something with one of them. I stumbled across a site call National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and mistook its hype for an offer to publish my novel.

         After clicking on this and double clicking on that for an hour, I realized I was wrong and logged out. The very next day I received an email from NaNoWriMo informing me I would be writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Imagine my delight; another fucking book. I clicked on a link in the email and found myself back at the site. I searched for a little button that would let someone in charge know I wasn't interested in participating but never found it. Was I committed? Had my random clicking obligated me to yet another binding contract? I've learned some very expensive lessons about “free” book publishers and “free” website developers and “free” blog sites.

         I didn't dare call my daughter and ask for help this time because I wanted my credit cards back. The last time Jennifer was forced to clean up one of my computer messes she'd confiscated all my plastic and made me promise never to click on anything!  Ever again. For the rest of my life. Or I’d never get my cards back. So instead of seeking her counsel, I went on a clicking binge, trying to find a way to unclick things I'd clicked on the day before. One of those clicks landed me in the NaNoWriMo Group on Face Book, smack dab in the middle of a bunch of writers who were all preparing to write a novel. One thing led to another and somehow, on November 1, 2015, I started writing yet another book, "If It Quacks Like A Duck and Doesn't Lay Brown Eggs, It's Probably Not A Zebra."

         Unfortunately, once I was back on Face Book I discovered things had changed a great deal in six years and I was completely out of my element. Before I go on, let's get one thing straight. I’m really not a poor dumb ostrich. Honest. I have a master's in sociology and undergraduate degrees in English and statistics. I'm a proud Phi Beta Kappa, or was until I discovered I am the only person in the United States of America over the age of 10 who doesn't have a clue how to navigate Face Book. I've been repeatedly asked to "download" this or "upload" that. What in the hell is that all about? I’m no more proficient with the "share" button. The first time I created a “thumbnail” I was delighted but had absolutely no idea how I’d done it. When I asked, I pissed off not one, but two writers. The first woman ordered me “back to the rock you belong under” and the second called me a “troll.” It hurt my feelings. It really did.

         Like the big-butted ostrich described above, I wanted to hide my head in the ground again. I missed the dark. I even missed the earthworms. We weren’t exactly friends but we understood each other. I never expected them to do ostrich stuff and they never expected me to do earthworm stuff. Above ground, everyone expected me to do things I couldn’t do, know things I didn’t know. I felt like Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land.”

          I repeatedly posted about my techno-ignorance in the NaNoWriMo Group but no one took me seriously. Evidently no one in the entire world could be as dumb as me. Except me. All my new writing friends mistook my desperation for humor. I got laughed right into a corner. I loved making people laugh so much that I just couldn't admit I wasn't trying to be funny. I didn't know what to do. Then, in the midst of  this personal crisis, my loving children lost their fucking minds and bought me a new computer. Now I'm in the midst of a God damned war with Windows 10 and Outlook. (To be continued) .

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Projectile Vomiting: A True Holiday Horror Story

It’s been an interesting couple of days with my three great grandkids. Dinner last night was particularly thought-provoking. I was reminded again that kids, dogs and even old women can survive just about anything. My holiday horror tale begins with me in the kitchen, the kids and my dogs in the living. I had just finished preparing the evening meal when I spotted James Mervin playing trampoline on the love seat. Knowing that this particular child is determined to break every little bone in his tiny body by the time he’s two, I stopped what I was doing, flew into the living room and swooped him mid-air, into my loving arms, thus saving his life for the twentieth time that day.

Feeling like the heroic grandma I am, I herded James and Sissy (the 3-year-old) to their “Little Mermaid” table. I’d moved it into the living room earlier so we could watch Christmas movies while we ate dinner. I instructed Ali to join her brother and sister at the table. She refused, explaining: “I can’t, grandma. I’m gonna to puke.” If only I’d heeded the warning an entire Christmas village might have been saved.

If only . . .

But instead of hearing a 6-year-old telling me she was about to throw up, I heard a little voice begging me for reassurance; she needed to know that: 1) I loved her and, 2) I wasn’t going to make her to eat anything green with for dinner. I’m a retired mental health professional so I’m good at turning a simple statement into something complex and laden with hidden Freudianisms. So I naturally reassured Ali that: 1) she was my favorite 6-year-old in the whole, wide world and, 2) I would never force her to eat anything green, ever again.

I returned to the kitchen, loaded up their three festive plastic dinner plates, carried them into the living room and served the evening meal. I had no sooner set Ali’s “Christmas Princesses” plate in front of her when she screamed “grandma!” and proceeded to throw up on James Mervin’s “Little Drummer Boy” plate. Evidently not yet satisfied with the mess she’d made, she jumped up, turned around and threw up again, this time all over the loveseat and surrounding carpeting.

I ran to the bathroom to retrieve our official "My Little Ponies" puke bucket, grabbed a couple "Twas the Night Before Christmas" bath towels and returned to the living room to provide any needed support and clean up vomit, always a nice touch at dinner time. Once Ali had stopped crying I gave her the bucket and began the task of puke removal. I’d barely gotten my hands all yucky and smelly when Sissy stands up, shoves her little “Warlords of the Universe Slaughter the Masses” (her parents have assured me her taste in holiday tableware stems from a phase she’s going through rather than some deep-seated desire to slaughter anyone) plastic dinner plate away from her and screams, "I'm gonna puke, too, grandma."

I yelled at Ali to give her sister the bucket and when she refused, I grabbed it from her little arms and stuck under Sissy's face. In a passive-aggressive act of defiance, Ali aims for the coffee table and throws up again, this time all over the little gingerbread house (more accurately described as the “little gingerbread lean-to”) we’d made from scratch started dissolving immediately. Candy Cane Lane, sitting on the other end of the coffee table, didn't fare much better. Ali managed to get it all--projectile vomiting perfected.

I grabbed the puke bucket away from Sissy and gave it back to Ali, just in case there was going to be a fourth round. As soon as she had it again clutched in her feverish little hands, Sissy screams “grandma!” again and starts running towards the bathroom, puking her little guts out as she goes. At least she’d tried to make her contribution the evening's puke-fest in the appropriate place.  

I cleaned the girls up, got them into their footed little “Frosty the Snowman” fleece pajamas and then started cleaning the loveseat, coffee table and Christmas decorations. Had Ali eaten something less aromatic, I might have been able to salvage the ‘lean-to’ but she hadn't so I couldn't. I tossed it in the garbage (ignoring the outraged little girls who were convinced I should be “washing” it instead of trashing it) and turned my attention to the carpet: was it going to be easier to clean up the moldering mound of puke sitting in front of the loveseat or the gelatinous breadcrumb-like globs leading to the bathroom?

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: Typically I would leave this next part out of my story because it's so unpleasant and I’m reluctant to make complete strangers throw up. Nevertheless, I've decided to tell it like it happened so that others with young children and dogs won't have to live through something similar.]  

As it turned out, the carpet required very little clean-up. At least on my part. Have you ever heard that coyotes eat and regurgitate the food they've eaten to feed their pups? Dogs must be distant relatives of coyotes? I caught Jazzie in the act of licking up the last of the vomit on the carpet in front of the loveseat. I was afraid I would be adding to the puke-fest but the urge  passed as soon as I saw Sophie heading for the hallway, evidently prepared to do her share of carpet cleaning.  

I got the dogs outside. Both little girls were clean and resting on the couch, still pissed. The smell of vomit lingered but the vomit itself was gone. [**Shuddering**]. It’s unfortunate that the story doesn't end here.    

Remember James Mervin? The baby brother? Loveseat gymnast? I didn't. I’d forgotten all about him. But there he was, sitting at the "Little Mermaid" table with his "Little Drummer Boy" plastic dinner plate still in front of him. Surely you remember the plate? It's the one Ali projectile vomited on first. James’ grilled cheese sandwich was almost gone. The poor “Little Drummer Boy” was swimming in . . . it was at that point that I, too, contributed to the night's puke-fest.

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Dog Story: Introducing Malcolm & the Little Red Wagon

Three animals share my home with me: Sophie is a seven-year-old hyperactive nightmare of a Border collie; Malcolm is an eight-year-old basset hound who appears to be in a coma most of the time; and Fancy puzzles is a cat who lives with us but belongs to someone else. Tonight's story is about Malcolm.

Taking this particular basset hound for a walk has been challenging for several years now. We live on the Washington Coast, just across the highway from Willapa Bay and about three miles from the Pacific Ocean. We rarely walk along the bay, preferring the beach. We're sandbillies.

Malcolm has never been big on exercise or demonstrated much an appreciation for the great outdoors. I doubt we'd ever get him outside our yard if God hadn't given him The Nose. The Ears were probably an afterthought but they do channel all those smells straight at Malcolm's Nose. The dog clearly associates his leash with beach smells--salt water, seagull droppings and the intoxicating aroma of dead crab. Nothing but his food dish excites him more.

Others who've met Malcolm might question my use of the word "excites" when describing my basset hound. I can understand that; at times, I have a hard time differentiating between excitement and exhaustion and he's my best friend. It's unfortunate Malcolm doesn't consider me his.

Basset hounds are sweet dogs in many ways. They're cute and quirky. If they weren't, they'd probably all find their sweet, low-slung sweet little asses back at the point of purchase, or the nearest pound within a week. Malcolm has never chased a ball, fetched a stick or caught a Frisbee. He doesn't sit, heel, lie down or play dead (though he does do an excellent imitation of a dead dog). He's stubborn, determined and tunnel-vissioned. We can be two miles from home when the damn dog arbitrarily decides he's done walking. At that point he flops down on the sand and there was absolutely nothing anyone can do to get him back up on his feet.

The first couple of times Malcolm ended our walk so abruptly I tried to wait him out. Certainly he'd be willing--if only grudgingly so--to head home under his own steam the closer it got to dinner time. He wasn't. The third time I had to drag Malcolm's 75 pound ass home, travois-style, on my hoodie, I refused to walk him unless accompanied by a much younger, much stronger set of arms and legs. My granddaughter's.

Chelsea thought my dog-walking story was hilarious until she found herself stumbling across soft sand, lugging the rump-end of my basset hound towards home. It was a hot day for this part of the world and the more stumbling and lugging we did, the pissier we each became. Then Chelsea stopped walking; I didn't notice until I'd taken a couple more steps forward and had pulled had Malcolm from her arms. He fell from my own and thudded softly to the soft ground.

"Why'd you stop? We'll never get his fat ass off the ground again," I said. I could hear the tone in my voice. Chelsea simply collapsed on the beach beside the dog, laughing.

"Didn't you hear him, grandma? He was snoring."

It was quite a chore getting Malcolm's lazy, uncooperative butt home that day, which probably had as much do with our uncontrollable bursts of laughing as it did with the dog's dead weight. But we managed.

The next day Chelsea showed up at my house pulling a little red wagon. She'd made a doggie bed inside and could hardly wait to take said doggie for his daily walk. Chelsea was absolutely full of herself that day. At the time, I thought it was a brilliant idea, too. And since she bought the wagon, we haven't had to carry Malcolm home. Not once.

The first week of walks went swimmingly. Chelsea began packing picnic feasts, and even thought to load a small beach umbrella in the wagon so we could lounge on the sand and not have to worry about skin cancer. But over the next couple of days she got a bit carried away, adding more and more things to the wagon. By Day Five it seemed we were carrying Malcolm's weight in beach accessories on the return trip so there was room for Malcolm in his little red wagon. Nevertheless, we were having fun on these outings and probably would have continued packing everything but the kitchen sink on our walks if it hadn't have been for Malcolm himself.

In retrospect, I can't pinpoint exactly when his agenda changed but I do recall that on Day Nine, Chelsea and I were loaded up like pack mules before we reached the beach. Malcolm was already stretched out in the wagon when we stepped on first stepped on the sand, sound asleep. The next day we left all accessories home. I watched my hound dog closely as we walked, saw him grow weary and then plop down on the ground, evidently done walking. We hadn't even made it to the end of my driveway.

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The Blogger Blogs to . . . ?

I love blogging and am really grateful to Tumblr for making it possible. I certainly didn't wake up one morning and say to myself, "Gee, I think I become a blogger today." To be honest, I wasn't even sure what a blog was. I was simply trying to figure out what "writershaming" was. It was the topic of conversation in NaNoWriMo that morning and I didn't have a clue what it was. So I asked, got referred to Tumblr and before I knew it I had a blog. Now I'm a blogger. I haven't a clue who I'm blogging to, or even what I'm allowed to blog about. Does grammar count? Can I use the "f" word? Does anyone even care? And who am I "chatting" with?

[tastefullyoffensive]

(photo via xiiiv)

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Just when I feared my first excursion into TumblrChatLand had dumped me on my old ass into yet another Social Networking Void, I came across this! I’ll be back. Maybe.

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Message in a Bottle of Booze

Close as I can, I have two blogs no one except me reads, an Author's page on Face Book I haven't a clue what to do with, a website I can't find and I've Twittered three times even though I don't know who I'm Twittering to or what in the hell I'm supposed be Twittering about. Yet here I am, on Tumblr Chat, "chatting?" It seems to me that I had a bigger fan base when phones still had rotary dials and long distance calls cost a fortune.

[technosaurus-blog]

10 posts!

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My computer was turned off when I sat down to write this morning and the feeling of dread I experience every time the damn thing does something on its own, without my permission, gripped my bowels. I considered having a stiff egg nog for breakfast, before turning it back on, it being the Christmas season and all, but ate a bagel instead. My granddaughter has already issued me two CUIs for operating a computer under the influence and has threatened to suspend all my computering privileges for six months the next time she finds me drunk and drooling at my keyboard.

“Let the adventure begin,” I grumbled as I poked the power button. The computer came to life and immediately responded, in big bold caps, almost as if it was back talking me:

"ALL YOUR FILES ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU LEFT THEM!" Where else would they be? I wondered. At the bottom of the screen in tiny letters: "Don't turn your PC off." Okay, I thought, I'll play along. I waited. And waited some more. Five minutes later another message appeared:

"WE'VE MADE SOME TWEAKS TO MAKE YOU MORE EXCITED ABOUT WINDOWS 10. IT'S NOW EVEN BETTER THAN IT WAS BEFORE." Well, thank God! Maybe the damned thing has come to its senses? I had hope for the first time since bringing the miserable thing home with me three months earlier.

I waited what seemed like a reasonable amount of time before I clicked on anything. The little warning at the bottom of the screen, about not turning the computer off, immediately changed:

"DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTEMPT TO TURN OFF YOUR PC!" It knew I'd tried.

More waiting. Growing impatient. Tapping my foot. Ignoring my great grandkids’ early morning demands and my dogs whining to go outside. What if I left and the computer demanded something of me? What would it do? I was searching for the “pause” button when it spoke to me again:

"WE'LL BE READY SOON." I was relieved. But then I noticed that the message on the bottom of the screen had changed yet again: ‘KEEP YOUR FUCKING FINGERS OFF THE CONNROL-ALT-DELETE BUTTONS OR YOU'LL BE SORRY.’ My focus switched to the “escape” button. The egg nog was calling me.

Five minutes later: "LET'S START!" Start what?

A tutorial is what. It thought it had me trapped until I sat through the whole damn thing. It didn't. I just kept poking keys until I was allowed to get to Bing (did Google go out of business?) and then to Face Book. And I didn’t feel the least little bit guilty.

Chelsea, my granddaughter, had added “ignore all tutorials” to the List of Rules I was to abide by if I wanted her continued help with my computer. That particular one, Rule #37, stemmed from an Outlook tutorial demonstrating how to “Sync” stuff. It wasn’t a particularly well-written tutorial; the instructions were a bit ambiguous if you ask me. Somehow, I lost email privileges for three days and did something that made it so I can’t access my AOL account from this computer without messing up its keyboard. I realize that makes no sense whatsoever and that you probably think I made it up. I didn’t; it’s all covered in Rules 38-40b.

I’ve written today’s “Drive By” blog because I feel a duty to warn others with Windows 10 about ignoring those rude little messages it continually spits out: “You have exceeded your maximum something or other" is one I get a lot. That one’s a speed message; it never sticks around long enough for me to see what it is I’ve exceeded. It’s typically followed by: ‘What the fuck do you think you're doing you stupid person?’ If you continue to ignore Windows, you'll eventually push it too far. Once the Program has reached its tipping point, you can expect a final message written very black, very mean-looking letters:

DO THIS ONE MORE TIME—GO AHEAD—WE DARE YOU! YOUR KEYBOARD HAS BEEN PROGRAMED WITH EXPLOSIVES TO ELIMINATE THREATS TO WINDOWS 10 BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO PROCREATE.

At first, I was relieved my keyboard hadn’t exploded. All Windows 10 had done to me this time was deny me access to all of my documents. It’s excuse: “Api.Client.dll missing, files corrupted.” Chelsea could fix it.

But then I got to thinking about the ‘what ifs?’

‘What if’ Windows 10 knows I’m way past my procreating years?

‘What if’ it knows there’s no way in hell I can fix a broken “Api.Client.dll” thingy? 

‘What if’ it “knows” my granddaughter will be back, and that she’s been procreating up a storm for the last five years?

‘What if’ Windows 10 is lying in wait, plotting and planning, strategizing, determined to take out my entire gene pool, one relative at a time?      

[technosaurus-blog]

DUMB AND DUMBER YET

Just when life gets a little easier outside the Cave, some new measure of technology sorely tempts me to return to the safety of those stone walls. I’d be there right now if I didn’t feel obligated to warn others of my kind--those Technosauruses who, like me, were unlucky enough to survive the meteor--about Windows 10. They need to know NOT to ignore those rude, little messages it continually spits at them, like "you have exceeded your maximum something or other," or "what the fuck do you think you're doing you stupid person?" or my favorite, "do this (something or other) one more time and you die! Your key board has been programed to explode to eliminate threats to Windows 10 before they have a chance to procreate." 

I woke up to a shut down computer. I never turn my computer off. I turned it back on, logged in and was greeted with this message in bold caps: "ALL YOUR FILES ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU LEFT THEM!" Where else would they be? At the bottom of the screen in tiny letters: "Don't turn your PC off." Okay, I thought, I'll play along.

Five minutes later another message appeared: "WE'VE MADE SOME TWEAKS TO MAKE YOU MORE EXCITED ABOUT WINDOWS 10. IT'S NOW EVEN BETTER THAN IT WAS BEFORE."  Well, thank God! Maybe there's hope I'll be able to find the final draft of the novel I finished for NaNoWriMo. The little warning about not turning off my computer had changed, too: "DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTEMPTTO TURN OFF YOUR PC!" It knew I'd tried.

Five minutes later: "WE'LL BE READY SOON." I was relieved--growing impatient, tapping my foot, ignoring great grandchildren's early morning demands in background and dogs whining to go outside. At the bottom of the screen, the message had changed yet again: "KEEP YOUR FUCKING FINGERS OFF THE CONNROL-ALT-DELETE BUTTONS OR YOU'LL BE SORRY." I stopped trying to turn off my computer.

Five minutes later: "LET'S START!" Start what? A tutorial is what. Forced learning! It thought it had me trapped until I sat through the whole damn thing. It didn't. I just kept poking keys until I was allowed to get to Bing (don’t have a clue why I have Bing now; did Google go out of business?) and then to my blog. Here I am. The Brightside to this story is that I learned something helpful; Windows 10 is a lot dumber about this user than I am about Windows 10.

[technosaurus-blog]

So Close and Yet So Far . . .

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‘Accidental’ Blog: The Backstory

I didn’t wake up four days ago thinking: gosh, I should start a blog today. Four days ago, I really didn’t know what a blog was. Of course I’d heard the term but somehow thought blogs were written by cooks. I didn’t go searching for one because I hate cooking, and I’d never inadvertently stumbled across a blog in any of my Googling adventures. That’s how I roll--stumbling across this and that, then lurking in the shadows, trolling writers’ groups, searching for clues, stalking those in the know, hoping someone—anyone—will give me some idea what everyone’s talking about.

I wasn’t born knowing what a hashtag is. Or a thumbnail. I knew what a link was but learned how to make one the hard way. NaNoers started asking for the link to my blog. I went to my blog, wrote down the address and then typed the address in a comment beneath the post I’d written. It turned into a link when I hit enter. I was delighted. Likewise, when my very first thumbnail popped up, I felt as if I’d done something quite extraordinary. I thought maybe, just maybe, I’m catching on. Unfortunately, there have been many setbacks since I created that mini-advertisement for prepperdating.com. Just yesterday I was proud as an old peacock after creating my first meme-thing. I could hardly wait to post it! My only concern was that viewers would assume I’d used a prefabricated meme and not gone to the trouble of learning how to make my own. Once it posted, that fear evaporated; the words were upside down.

THE BACKSTORY: I do a lot of posting in my writers’ groups and since my ramblings tend to be humorous, no one takes me seriously. I suspect very few people who have read my blog’s backstory of my believe it. A writer in NaNoWriMoVille was clearly upset with other NaNoers who were writershaming. Never having heard that particular term before, and fearing that I was guilty of said offense, I Googled it. That took me to Tumblr. I just kept clicking on this and agreeing to that and relatively soon discovered I had joined up. A couple more clicks and there I was, at my very own blog. Never even saw that one coming. I end up joining one thing or another every time I go Googling. No one has ever offered me a blog before. I’m waiting for the bill.

  Once I had a blog, I needed to decide what to blog about, and figure out who I was blogging to. I’m still working on that. I can’t seem to find any rules for this relatively new art form. How long should my blog be? Can I use profanity (I seem incapable of writing without it, much to my progeny’s dismay)? Can Life Alert sue me for critiquing their insipid commercials? Nevertheless, I’m blogging. And I must be doing something right because I’ve already earned a Tumblr Certificate of Merit for completing five blogs. (They evidently even counted the first one which was a single sentence: “what the fuck do I do now?” My granddaughter made me clean up my language a bit but the meaning’s still there: encoded and encrypted, deep within the five or six word sentence.)

In closing, I want to thank my three followers. Thank you. I now have 7.5 followers; I only count family members as half-a-follower each.

[technosaurus-blog]

5 posts!