I uploaded a practice blog today, so I could fiddle with a template and see what things could happen. I managed to shut it down . . . but I got it up and going again thanks to what I learned last night. Being a member of that generation which did not grow up with computers and the Internet, I find it tricky delving in to all this stuff. That’s okay. And at least there isn’t a test on it in the morning. There is just so much to be learned, however.  Having a live-in tutor wouldn’t be bad.

In 2000, my grandson Cameron was playing Nintendo and he would come to Quentin, his uncle, for help when he got stuck.  We would be sitting in the big room over the garage with the six windows – Mother, Quentin, myself – and my father, who was ill. Quentin spent a lot of time working a jigsaw puzzle; Mother read and did whatever she could to help my dad be more comfortable. I don’t know what I did.

Ever so often, we would hear, “Uncle, Uncle . . . ” spoken all so softly outside the door.  The pleas for help were closer than “ever so often” now that I remember it more clearly. Quentin would always help, although sometimes I would see his shoulders sag at the first soft syllable.

He would get Cameron over the hump and on the way to getting whatever the goal was accomplished; he once mentioned that he didn’t want to do it all for him and not leave any of the fun. That reminded me of when he was quite young and he said, “Barbara (Egan) is really nice.” When I asked him why he thought so, he told me that a lot of times when you asked someone to “start” the tab on a cola can, they would just go ahead and open it, but Barbara would pry it a little from the can lid and allow the younger kid to get the fun of the fizz.

Learning and teaching :  it’s pretty much a satisfying thing.

Yes, I got an internal server error because I decided to 1) just fool around with the .htaccess file and 2) to push a little square with a red “x” in it in the Apache handler section of my host. It was ugly . . . but Christina came to my rescue and things are running again.

I am just so tempted to go fool with that file again . . . Must control typing fingers of death.

To determine what animal you most resemble in the quiz featured in the post below, they ask you a bunch of questions, answers to which range from a wide scope of diverse choices to those which ask you to narrow in on one facet of a topic.

But, as I sit here, pondering my baby pandahood, it occurs to me that I probably qualify for my own personalized set of questions for kooks.

Do you prefer to nap on a bed or curled up on a sofa with an afghan pulled over all of you, including your head?

Which do you crave more – peanut butter or candy?

Would your home look like a real estate model or a second hand shop with narrow paths between odd objects?

Do you feel a loyalty to inanimate stuffed animals that have become threadbare? Y/N

If your spouse woke you from a deep sleep and said, “The Assyrian,” would you respond “What?” or say, “came down like a wolf on the fold and his cohorts . . . “?

Are there certain common English words that are the default punchline to joking questions? Example: trucks.

Would you sit in the rain on a Pacific beach and watch the gray water or go do something in a dry place?

If you saw a new gadget, would you think, “I can make that with my grandmother’s old potato masher and duct tape”? Y/N

Have you been torn between the old school punctuation outside a quoted word or phrase and the new school’s idea to stick in inside the closing quote? Y/N

If you are reading a mystery and think you have figured out the killer, do you go to the back of the book, find out and then go back to reading slowly and enjoying the writing OR do you race through the rest of the book to see what happens, totally missing clues and well-phrased sentences?

Do you ever feel like punching someone in the nose? Y/N

Here’s a little quote from a Wikipedia article; it does not surprise me. In fact, when I saw I was a baby panda, I thought, “Gee, they’re kind of mean, aren’t they?”

Though giant pandas are often assumed docile, they have been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than predatory behavior.

My mother said to me around Christmas that she had noticed women wearing colorful versions of “that hat you got your dad” – the mad bomber hat. I don’t know where I got it. It was a long time ago. Now Quentin’s WWI aviator’s suede helmet I bought at the original Banana Republic, I didn’t buy it for him. He was little then, but later he found it. He likes it and wears it for the same reason: he tells people, “It’s warm.” Yes, it is. It is also a little odd looking, but then Quentin has the most marvelous smile and the hat takes on a renewed flair.

But I was talking about the Mad Bomber hat, the one I gave my dad. It was sort of a joking Christmas present because when I was in high school, he used to drive me crazy by sticking the zipped-off hood of a parka coat on his head to putter around outside or walk the dog. The sideflaps poked out down around chin level like beagle ears. Overall, it gave him the look of a homeless man. It was some shade of green; I can’t really call it forth clearly in my mind’s eye because I always rolled my eyes when I looked out the window and saw him wearing it.

When I saw the Mad Bomber hat years later, I knew I had to get it for him. That Christmas morning, I remember my mother telling my aunt about the infamous hood and remarking, “She hated it, just hated it.” He wore the Mad Bomber and I think it kept him warm, and that I had learned, was the important thing.

Then these stylish versions turned up at Eddie Bauer and Mother took a fancy to them, so I got her one for a late Christmas present – although she insisted on paying for it. I got her, though, I told her it was half as much as it was. Hers is blue with the fur in the usual places – on the forehead flap that folds down, on the ear flaps and around the edges of the neck. Mother is 81; she has panache.

She wore it down to the bookmobile and into a couple of her thrift shop haunts. She doesn’t wear it to chop kindling; she says she doesn’t want to get it dirty.

Easter is early this year; I don’t know whether it was early or late or right in the middle in 1965, but that is the year of the Palm Sunday tornadoes. One went over our heads, but we didn’t know it. I wouldn’t remember the day as special had not we become aware of what had happened to our neighbors.

Because of what I saw later that day, I remember the hours before. It was a gloomy day, warm enough to go out in shirtsleeves; we were looking out the windows like we would on any potentially stormy day. My dad and I were looking to the west from the  – okay, we called it “the west room” then. (Later, my father would rechristen it “the cold room” – not to be confused with “the little cold room”.) Mother was looking out the back door of the porch. The old school house was a across a block of field converted to lawn (yard) and beyond that, the tree line. She came and said there were black clouds up high moving very fast.

She and Grandma went to the basement, down the old stairs that had more the angle of a ladder. Daddy and I just kind of stood upstairs, thinking if we should go down or not. Nothing happened. Mother and Grandma came up; Daddy went back to reading the paper and I guess I wandered around, probably thinking of homework I would always put off until it was almost too late.

Someone knocked at the front door and wanted to know if our phone worked. I don’t remember if it did or not, but I know something was said about the Bassett house, which was about the same distance to the northeast of the schoolhouse as we were to the south, being moved off its foundation. That was the least of it. Teddy Gage was sitting outside in a lawn chair beside the towering roots of a once really towering tree. Metal was wrapped around stripped trees. Homes were picked up and dropped in the lake.

Everything was fine right around our house. The tornado had hopped.

I am up because I have to take my daughter-in-law, who doesn’t drive, to work at the hospital; she likes to get there early for her 12 hour shift of nursing. Tomorrow I will do it again . . . but today, today, I see white, slick roadways out there. But this is not as bad as it could have been; our snow measurement is less than an inch and the predictions for much more have been cut back. Auggghhhhhh. Given the percentage of good calls by the weather guys in our area this year, that might mean we will actually wind up snowbound.

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UPDATE: 6:45 am. Sydney’s tracks are filled in and more and the snow is coming down fast and furious. On the way to the hospital I followed a little car with the taillights of  Corvette going 20 mph; no way I was passing him on the right. On the way home, I met a salt truck and my first thought was to be nice and safe in it. Well, it is big . . . but all the salt is behind it. That could be a bummer. Anyway, if this keeps up, we could have a lot of snow. ACK.

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What I am doing here is reacting to the situation in a manner influenced by the Internet and The Weather Channel – this awareness of everyone’s weather and emphasis on our own, in light of what is going on elsewhere. Hey, we have had many, many snows in March and April; this is really northern Northern Indiana and this is the way it sometimes goes.

Shoot, back in 1935, they a terrible time getting to the hospital when my cousin Freddie was born because of a blizzard.

Shoot, back in 2000, Quentin and I went by two semis and lots of cars that had slid off the highway on our way to Indianapolis. In fact, just as we thought we were out of it, we felt the tires let loose on an overpass. We got lucky. And then it was nothing but just rain.
I got him to the airport and then went over to Fountain County to check on the engraving that was supposed to be added to my father’s tombstone. I remember pulling into the cemetery – The Kingman Fraternal Cemetery – very early on a foggy morning. It was too early to stop at anyone’s house and I was really too tired to go anyway. So I pulled the car off to the side of the cemetery lane, climbed in the backseat and went to sleep beneath one of the sleeping bags we never travel without. I awoke to bright sunlight and a clear sky. The morning of incredible snowy ice could have been a dream.

When I got home that night, everyone had tales of how things had come to a standstill after we left – road warnings were issued: stay home. It seems Quentin and I had unknowingly been traveling in a break of the storm – it had been much worse on the highway about a half-hour before we passed and new yuckier ice and snow were following us.

I told them I had slept in a cemetery that morning. Now that impressed them. Hey, it was bigger news than bad weather in Northern Indiana when it was supposed to be spring.

Why, yes, it is snowing and the car is icing over – the old little green car. And why is it not in the garage . . . well, we got a little careless with our junk and have but one space. I guess Chi-town is getting it and we will have to see how it turns out  for us. The wind is whipping the shrubs around, but the snow stays on them; it is probably ice. Ah, paying more attention, I see the branches are already leaning down. ‘Tis not a fit day out for man nor beast – or little green cars. I forget it is Good Friday

I slept in this morning, although the dog practically insisted I get up. He got so disgusted with me that he gave on of his snorts and walked away, then sank to the floor and stared at me.  As a parting shot, he slowly turned his head away from me.

I plug away at this little Google problem and think, “Well, it’s better than being on a desert island and plugging away at making a boat.” Maybe a dessert island wouldn’t be bad.

I was up ’til one this morning, trying to get something to work between Google and me. I didn’t get it working, but I figured out exactly what was broken, which is an accomplishment for this little cookie from the slide rule generation. (I remember I was really pleased to have a “round” slide rule to carry in my purse. Wonder where it is now?)

I overslept and woke thinking, “What if my heart stops today?” I thought about pulling the blanket up over my head. But I got up and hollered – yes, hollered and I do hate the yelling from room to room thing. Got Cameron dropped off at school and waved at Summer and Alison – our resident sickies – misplaced and found my mini-recorder, stuffed extra batteries in my vest and headed out the door. Then I came back in for the keys.

Called Mother from the car and told her I’d call again later.

Then the old, old diesel and I trundled on down the road . . . and it was sunny.

I had a great time at the construction site. The guy from the energy agency, the vocational instructor, learning so many new things about special ways to do basement walls and something called “sip” walls and recessed ceiling lights that have the potential to be big heat losers.

I liked the instructor; he was one of those fellows I could drive across the country with and not feel as if we had to cut the car in half or flip a coin to see who got killed between here and California. The kids were great; I like good kids – really like them. At one point I said, climbing up and over a big, big stack of plywood, “Hey, I’m sixty guys, give me a hand.” I lied; I’m 59. I had to laugh; when I tell my age to most, a lot exclaim that I can’t be that old (which, of course, is why I mention it in the first place). When you’re dealing with high school juniors and seniors, they don’t react like that. You’re old. Oh, yeah.

I told the instructor the hour I spent there had made my day – that I’d be upbeat all day. So far, so good – even if I can’t tweak the template to get Google to see what I want it to see for a few hours.

Sydney and I even went out to the fairgrounds and he got to run and sniff, sniff, sniff.

The wind switched over and was coming from the north, however, and I took shelter from the gusts on the south side of the log cabin, looking down toward the grandstand, a view that was always so pleasing until the ancient structure burned down. The new one is metal and safer, but it doesn’t tug at my emotions the way the old wooden white one did.

Floral Hall is always a good link from the past to me to the future. I’m sure it leans to the north, but they tell me it’s solid. At the fair, it’s home to quilts and local history; flowers and canned goods are there too, but the display is pretty small, compared to the days of my childhood when I was taught to scrape the paraffin off the top of the jelly and jam my grandma made.

Tonight it gets colder; tomorrow it snows. Well, that’s okay.

” . . . woke thinking, “What is my heart stops today?” Okay, so I’ve got my ups and downs.