bunt sign

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Whenever the family gets together, I kind of feel that it's My Day, even if it's really Mother's Day. This is especially true this year, since I contributed absolutely nothing (other than my presence) to the family dinner. If I could figure out how to make this happen a little more often, I'd lose every excuse I ever have to wallow in my own solitude. I can live off a day like this, with people around me, until the next family occasion, whenever that turns out to be.

We had a beautiful day for it, too. It was partly cloudy, but of course that means it was mostly sunny. Sitting around the patio table in Suzanne's back yard, we ate a little, drank a little, and laughed a little. A little more than a little, actually. Suzanne and I both gave Mom the same card, although neither of us knew it until she opened them.

Mom has a new DVD player, thanks to David (who was excused from today's gathering for other obligations), so it was easy to come up with gift ideas for her. Now all she has to do is learn how to work it.

I'd love to be able to help her, but I've read the manual from cover to cover and I still can't figure out how to use the remote to navigate a menu. You'd think those things would be intuitive, but every one that I've seen is not only different from every other one, but crowded with tiny buttons with obscure labels like "EAM" and "AB RPT."

This new one of Mom's has all that, but no up and down arrows. I thought I was pretty good with electronic devices, but this one has me flummoxed. So far. It's not as if I'm going to give up.

She got me something for Mother's Day, too. It sort of make sense, in a kind of a way. She wasn't a mother until I came along, after all. So she gave me an Audubon bird call, the kind you twist to make random bird sounds. Very cool. I'll let you know if it works, although it might be hard to tell since the birds have no trouble finding their way to my house already.




clouds

Evening sky.



The day was wonderful, but it got off to a sputtering start. I had computer connection problems and a power outage, all before noon. Plus, that next-to-last glass of wine might have been one more than I needed, so the one after that was really overkill. But hey, tomorrow's Monday and nobody expects me to be all pollyannaish anyway.




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Recent recommendations can always be found on the links page.


One year ago: Dimmer Switch
"It was a seriously surreal experience for me."

Two years ago: Pop-Ups
"This bird has the most grating early-Dustin-Diamond voice; it's no wonder the girls hide in the locker room."


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