WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

I’ve called this post “Spring Bling” because crystals and diamonds are on my mind today. No, not that pretty Swarovski crystal, but instead crystals of snow, those beautiful frilly flakes, that were supposed to be fluttering down to the ground in the early hours of this, the first day of Spring. But yeah – the predicted snow flurries never materialized here, so I guess those intricate crystals whirled and twirled their way to parts unknown – probably Boston. So, with crossed arms and tapping a foot, I await Spring which doesn’t officially arrive until 6:45 p.m. (which is not soon enough in my humble opinion).

I set out for a walk on this cold morn, with the earworm of the day, “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond.

Neil Diamond is in town tonight. It’s been déjà vu all week for me. Every time I heard a snippet of one of his most-famous songs it took me back … way back … and suddenly I was awash in the memories and the music, just like it was yesterday.

When I was a teenager, I had the biggest crush on Neil Diamond, he with the dark wavy hair, brooding good looks and mellow voice. I loved all his songs and never tired of listening to Neil singing “Solitary Man” – I wanted to pat his hand and say “there, there” or maybe “wait for me – I’ll make it right for you” … all wishful thinking on my part.

Though I had a collection of 45s, my very first record album was a promotional LP gleaned from cereal box tops back in 1972. The double-sided album entitled “It’s Happening” featured The Supremes on one side and Neil Diamond on the flip side. I had my favorites “Brooklyn Roads”, “And the Grass Won’t Pay No Mind” and “Long Gone” memorized in no time, and I played them so often, it’s a wonder the needle still stayed steady in the grooves of the vinyl.

I saw Neil Diamond twice, but it was many years ago.

The first time I saw him in concert was in the Summer of 1976 with a group of college chums. We had lawn seats at the former Pine Knob Music Theatre on a beautiful June night. It didn’t matter if you were up close or far away, he stirred the crowd and everyone jumped up and swayed as one while they sang to “Forever in Blue Jeans”.

The second time was in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena. It was April of 1983 and Neil kicked off the “Heartlight” tour not far from where we worked. He was here for five shows; we were there for the first night. I went with two co-workers who had a similar affinity for Neil Diamond’s music and we splurged and got great seats. It promised to be a perfect evening and my birthday was that week so we celebrated with a special dinner beforehand.

Though the memories of each of those concerts lived on long after Neil Diamond exited the stage, the remembrance of the concert in Detroit still leaves me a little sad.

The above picture is appropriate for Flashback Friday and this post. It was taken on my sixteenth birthday. Some friends of the family were invited to dinner at our house and they brought a card, a cake and a corsage. To commemorate turning “sweet sixteen” my parents bought me a pretty gold filigree ring. There was a diamond set in each of the two loops in the letter “L” which signified both the April birthstone and the first letter of my name. I opened the jeweler’s box and excitedly slipped the ring onto my finger, but it was so loose I removed it immediately lest it slide off my finger and get lost. I didn’t even include that gift in the picture but it was sitting on “display” on the table. I went with my parents the next day to the jewelry store to have it sized. I treasured that ring and wore it everywhere, with no other jewelry on my hand until I got my high school and college class rings.

The evening we attended the Neil Diamond concert in Detroit, it had been a chilly Spring day. It was downright cold in the large auditorium and my hands were cold. I remember pulling my coat around me, and putting my gloves on briefly, but soon removed them when everyone kept giving their favorite singer a standing ovation. But, one of those times that I was fervently clapping to keep up with the rest of the concertgoers, to my horror, my ring flew off my finger and disappeared into the crowd. “My ring” I cried out to no one in particular, but who could hear me? The music was loud, the speakers cranked to full capacity and the crowd noise was deafening as they crooned along together to so many tunes they knew by heart.

During each concert, Neil Diamond took very few breaks – a few shirt changes and that was it. So, having trained my eyes on the very seat where the ring appeared to have bounced off and landed, my friends and I went to search for it after the concert was over. Down on hands and knees in the dim auditorium, we searched under and around each seat in that area, but my ring was not to be found. We went to report it missing, hoping that the janitorial staff would find the ring and return it to the front office so I could retrieve it.

Ever hopeful, I even called into the J.P. McCarthy Show on WJR the next morning, hoping J.P. could pull some strings and have someone scour the seating area with extra diligence. I lamented that I’d lost a diamond at the Neil Diamond show, and through that clever wordplay, I appealed to any of the listeners who might be attending one of his concerts over the next four nights at this venue. Well, J.P. listened to my story then said “anybody out there who can help this young lady out?” The radio station took my name and address, but my ring was never found.

The old adage is “a diamond is forever”, but sadly, in my case, I was only borrowing mine. I’ve always wondered if that ring was ever recovered or if it languishes, still wedged in a little crevice, nook or cranny somewhere, just waiting to be discovered someday.

Well, I left the house with a spring in my step, after listening to an assortment of Irish tunes in the wee hours of the morn. But, all the mirth and merriment immediately stopped short once I stepped beyond the screen door where I verified that, nope – Spring had not yet arrived despite that balmy and beautiful day we enjoyed yesterday. Old Man Winter refuses to let this season go from his manly grip, and will probably hold on ‘til the bitter end when we exit Winter and welcome Spring on Friday. The wind was gusting and it was blustery and John McMurray, WJR’s weatherman had mentioned that our Michigan weather mirrored that of Dublin, Ireland today.

I’m still keeping the walks somewhat abbreviated for now because I basically had to start my walking regimen from scratch since more than a month had passed since my last long jaunt. I’m not yet ready to travel to Council Point Park for even one lap, which is 3 ½ miles altogether round trip, and, I doubt the snow and ice have disappeared from there anyway. I will set my sights on three miles by the first day of Spring – hopefully anyway.

As I passed beneath some still-bare and gangly looking trees, I heard a bird or two cheeping as if to call out “Top of the mornin’ to you lass” so perhaps they, too, had a sense of the usually festive mood of this holiday. I still had “The Unicorn Song” coursing through my brain and out my ears, having heard snippets of it as I flipped up and down the dial on my stereo headphones while eating breakfast and trying to get my Irish on. As I walked along, I failed to see a unicorn, nor a single green alligator, so I suppose most of those gators are either relegated to the front of the Lacoste shirts or running rampant on the golf courses in Florida these days. There weren’t any long-necked geese flying overhead either, and, if there were leprechauns toting a pot of gold, they were absent as well.

I was glad I didn’t totally abandon my hat for the season – well, you know me … too many years of riding the bus, and I don’t always give up the gloves nor hat ‘til May Day sometimes. But, the wind kept trying to whisk my hat off my head and I shivered a time or too and felt like doing a jig to warm up. But, in the end I didn’t want to ruin my credibility, with someone thinking perhaps I’d slurped down some Irish coffee instead of Nescafe in my cup. So, no … the Irish whiskey didn’t make me frisky and any wiggling around might have been attributed to that second cup of coffee I shouldn’t have had before departing on my walk.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day one and all.

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go outside this morning – it was Friday the 13th after all, and the second one in this young year, with another one slated for November.

But out I went, being careful not to step on any cracks, or let any black cats cross my path. No one was using a stepladder at that time of day so … whew, I did not have to worry about walking underneath a ladder that I happened to encounter along the way.

I can’t say that I suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia, or fear of Friday the 13th. And, I am not really superstitious either, although I did have a few errands to do today and said to myself “well, they can wait ‘til next week” … that reasoning was just in case there was some kind of funky Friday the 13th karma lurking out there, and I sure didn’t want to be part of it.

Now, I’ve known people in the past who were superstitious about certain days. Both were former co-workers and I’ve lost track of them through the years, so I don’t know if they still have their intense fears.

A secretary named Sandy refused to leave her home every Friday the 13th and sequestered herself there until the entire day had passed.

A young attorney named Kim had successive mishaps on March 15th, a/k/a “The Ides of March” or the day when Julius Caesar was assassinated back on March 15, B.C. Kim was certainly one who should have heeded the warning to “beware the Ides of March”.

The first time she was jogging in the morning, something she did year round, even most Winter days. She somehow made a misstep, slid on a piece of black ice, whereupon she fell at an awkward angle, shattering her slender ankle into many pieces, much like the fate of a valuable race horse who has stumbled and gone down hard. She had to have surgery with multiple pins put in her ankle and was on crutches with a huge cast, then a walking cast, for much of the Summer and Fall that year.

After a grueling recovery, the following March 15th, Kim left work, headed to the parking garage and hopped into her new, bright blue and pink “Splash” pick-up truck. Soon the passenger door opened and a tall stranger was in the seat beside her brandishing a gun and telling her not to scream or she would be sorry. He grabbed then stuffed her open purse under his heavy jacket. She started the truck, and they wound their way around the seven levels of the Buhl Garage and finally reached the gate. She reached up behind the visor to grab her access pass, and nervously tried to stall leaving the garage by purposely swiping it incorrectly. The intruder got angry and said “no games – go through the gate” so she turned the card correctly, the gate lifted and they left the safe confines of the garage. They headed down Jefferson Avenue and soon turned onto a side street in Greektown where he gruffly told her to “get out now”. She scrambled out the door and he slid over to the spot she vacated and sped away. She had no cellphone to call the police and went into a restaurant, tears streaming down her face and shaking like a leaf. The owner called the police, and they scoured the area for her truck and her missing purse, but neither were found. The locks had to be changed on all the office doors. It was a harrowing experience to be sure, and from that day forward she vowed to never leave the house on the “Ides of March”.

So dates can be pretty significant sometimes.

But sometimes the numbers game can be fun.

Like bracketology.

I heard an interesting statistic on the news yesterday about the annual NCAA college basketball tournament that we refer to simply as “March Madness”. A statistician said that sometimes a grandmother who knows nothing about basketball, could sit down and fill out her predictions with just about as much accuracy as a person who spent hours, if not days, analyzing team stats and player prowess, then painstaking pores over and creates a bracket sheet. Well that was interesting, albeit not so believable. I’ve seen the form for bracket sheets plenty of times at the office, but wouldn’t even know how to start working on one. Whenever I’ve picked squares for the office football pool, just by eeny-meeny-miny-moe, I’ve won a few times, but then there is no skill involved in that exercise, just Lady Luck prevailing.

It sure is hard to pick potential lottery prize numbers. How do you guess? Is it scientific or do you just close your eyes and see where the nib of your pencil lands or do you tell the computer to pick for you? When the lottery in Michigan first began in November 1972, just a few months later, lucky 53-year old Hermus Millsaps was the winner of the first million-dollar prize. The media covered his arrival at the lottery office where he was presented with an over-sized check of his winnings. He was just an “ordinary Joe” who worked at Chrysler and he soon piddled his big prize away and died pretty much penniless in 2002.

But, based on ol’ Herman’s luck in that very first Lotto game, my mom and I decided to play the lottery too. We put our heads together and devised our six numbers for the bet sheet based on a configuration of our birthday info, phone number and house address. Then, clutching that configuration of lucky digits (1, 2, 3, 8, 19 and 21), hopefully a potentially final numbers combo, I hustled to the Lotto retailer, took their number two pencil, filled in the little boxes and handed over two quarters with my fingers crossed. That Saturday night, as luck would have it, the numbers were pulled and we had four numbers. We won a whopping $37.00 and immediately decided we would play that combo of numbers forever. Well, we played for years thereafter and never won another dime.

If all this foolishness about numbers was not enough, tomorrow mathematicians the world over will recognize and celebrate Pi Day, 03/14, which symbolizes Pi, or the ratio of a circle’s circumference: 3.14. Did you know that Congress designated March 14th as Pi Day back in 2009?

Well, even if numbers are not your game, you can celebrate too. Your choice … berry or cream, so there!

This morning it was murky but mild, and, in the distance, way down in Wyandotte, I heard the cattle-like lowing of the foghorn’s mournful call as I walked out the door. I set out for a brief respite from the confines of the house, eager to get a breath of fresh air that was above the freezing mark.

The words “Spring Fling” are far from racy or suggestive as regards this title … not in the least. They are, for me, just the almost-ceremonial first day after a long and cold Winter where the bulky clothes are cast aside in favor of lighter and more-seasonable ones.

I actually get more excited on the first day I feel the warm Spring sun on my head, or, when I return home from a walk carrying my jacket or sweater looped around a finger or slung around my waist. That’s a feel-good moment for sure.

But I felt compelled to recognize the Spring-like day after the brutally cold weather we’ve endured these past two months.

So, as I walked out the door this morning, it was sans the scarf, and the mittens were replaced by more-fashionable gloves. I also banished the boots, ditched the down-filled parka and shucked the Sherpa hat.

What item is the next to go?

Well, I’ll never tell.

Ahhh, a flirtation with Spring is good for the Winter-weary soul.

Sleep was already somewhat compromised by losing an hour of precious ZZZZZZZs due to the Daylight Saving Time event, without having slumber encumbered by an annoying clicking noise deep into the night.

Now, I am not usually one of those people who stew and fret about that 60 minutes whittled from the weekend every Spring, but this time it was downright annoying.

Though it is smarter to adjust ALL the clocks the night before, I usually don’t, save for my duo of trusty alarm clocks. I say “trusty” because I’ve owned this pair of identical alarm clocks for decades. I am disciplined enough to rarely use the snooze feature, but I do set the two clocks to ring off about a half-hour apart, lest I return to Sleepy Land and make myself late.

Last night I sped the clock hands around to spring forward for the time change, then pulled the alarm buttons out. In the middle of the night, however, I awoke to a loud clicking – it was dark, of course, and the noise was by my head and next to the bed. I turned on the nightstand lamp and found the culprit … the hands had fallen off the spindle on one of the clocks. There they were, wedged rather pitifully, at the base of the clock face. Every time the second hand swept past those dilapidated hands, it made a horrible clickety-clacking noise. For a brief moment I thought there was some kind of “Hickory, Dickory Dock” shenanigans going on.

So … what to do?

I picked up the clock and jiggled it around, hoping that the wayward hands might miraculously land back in the right place. No such luck. Not wanting to tear myself from my comfy, curled-up position in the warm bed to try to perform surgery on an alarm clock, I yanked the battery out, feeling quite proud of myself for having dealt with that little fix-it since I was still half asleep.

Ahhh, peace and quiet again.

Except of course, the first alarm went off, and I said “pfft” and waited on the second one ….

Well, that blew a good portion of my Sunday since I didn’t wake up for hours afterward.

I have always had a quirky bond with clocks; in fact, it’s almost a love-hate relationship.

My kitchen clock is very old and every time there is a time change, I hold my breath that the battery stays in place since I must nudge it to access the dial to move the hands. Sometimes, that C battery will slide out of the compartment slightly, then when the chimes start at the top of the hour, it is a rather bizarre noise … a kind of slow-motion “boing”, “boing”, “boing” ‘til it gets relief, i.e. pushing the battery back in place, or installing a new one. That clock’s pendulum has always been wacky, so, upon replacing the clock on the wall, I must tilt the whole thing this way and that to start the pendulum, then slow it down. Otherwise, I’ll be typing along and in my peripheral vision, I see this brass disc dancing back and forth crazily. It always reminds me of those Kit-Cat Kitty Cat Clocks, those kitchen clocks that have been around for eons where the black cat’s eyes shift to and fro and the tail swings back and forth like a pendulum.

And, I know I should peek at the car manual to get directions on resetting the car clock since it got messed up when I got the new battery a month ago. I don’t want to wait ‘til my next trip to the dealership for the most-recent recall since they don’t know when the parts are coming in.

Tempus fugit is a very eloquent way in Latin to say that time flies …it seems we just did this clock-changing exercise, and, all too soon November 1st will be here and we’ll be doing the time change once again.

This morning the brilliant blue sky belied the cold temps – it was only 18 degrees, but if you forgot about the cold for a few minutes, you could pretend that it was warm and sunny, even if the sun’s piercing rays were just there for show. Ol’ Sol took his own sweet time creating an eventual slow-mo snow and ice meltdown, but not at that hour.

Further gazing around, with a little stretch of the imagination, you could conjure up images of piles of sand twinkling with beach glass, knowing full well that it was really big mounds of snow which sparkled with a crunchy, glazed-looking surface that looked as if it had been shellacked, courtesy of Tuesday’s freezing rain.

Imagination is good for the Winter-weary soul.

But, cheer up because Spring is now only a dozen days away.

No one can wait, especially as the temps kept rising today ‘til we topped the 40-degree mark.

At the grocery store, besides jelly beans and bunnies, Meijer was chock full of rain boots and brollies, and even beach gear, all as if to signal that April and May were just around the corner. The featured fruit this week was strawberries. Mmmmmmmm. They looked scrumptious, bright red and luscious, like misshapen hearts with mini yellow dots, tumbling around in their oblong plastic boxes.

The media and 7-Eleven have been teasing us by touting the newest Slurpee flavor which debuts later this month. It is none other than hometown favorite – Faygo Redpop strawberry soda, made right here in Detroit. While a Slurpee may not sound too appealing on a chilly day, the thought of 50 degrees this Wednesday is incentive enough to hunt down one of those tall slushy drinks.

Yup, I think we might be turning a corner in this long and never-ending Winter season.

“Sparrow on a Cold Winter’s Day”
Image and copyright by Rodney Campbell: https://www.flickr.com/photos/acrylicartist/16323571509

Spring must be just around the corner.

Or … so they say.

The birds are singing louder and the Scotsman with the heavy brogue who touts Scotts crabgrass killer has returned to the airwaves.

Well, that all sounds promising, despite our smorgasbord of bad weather yesterday wherein Mother Nature dealt out every type of weather card imaginable over the course of the day.

We started out with a quick two inches of snow, followed by freezing rain, then it warmed up a little and then we had “regular” rain … lovely.

So this morning, after I booted up and suited up, I slipped out the side door, gingerly stepping down on the glassy-looking, ice-slickened sidewalk, taking great care to shuffle slowly to the garage. Some spots were bumpy, some just glazed over and I didn’t want to wipe out. I heard a big truck huffing and puffing nearby and wondered if it was a Zamboni coming to smooth out my driveway and sidewalk which surely rivaled an ice rink.

The sky was gray, and the sun was absent, however, the birds who formerly congregated in the two plum trees on my next-door-neighbor’s property, were huddled together yonder as if they were in some type of birdie kaffeeklatsch. I listened to their twittering as I inched down the sidewalk, and their cheery notes gave me hope that perhaps Spring may not be far off.

Those sparrows had to relocate to new digs after the two diseased trees split in the November 24th windstorm and were removed by the City. I wondered where the birds disappeared to because I really missed hearing their cheeps and chirps all Winter while I was outside.

But, suddenly … there they were, sparrows lined up like soldiers, their uniforms a drab brown color, with many pair of delicate feet gripping the sturdy branch.

They were singing their little hearts out … that is, until they saw me.

Then they stopped.

They looked me up and down, and, as if shaking their heads, probably wondered aloud why I was bedecked in a down coat, big hat and lug boots, and treading so slowly down the pathway. It was, after all, finally above the freezing mark.

I went in and started up the car, then stole another glance over at the contingent of sparrows while I stood in the driveway waiting for the car exhaust to exit the garage so I could close the door.

Perhaps they were studying me, happy to know they only had to lift off and fly to navigate from Point “A” to “Point B” and none of this silly baby steps stuff.

They finally resumed singing, having deemed me “safe” and no threat, even though I was wearing a coat stuffed with feathers. They probably wished they were like their counterparts who flew South, instead of hanging out here and toughin’ it out. I don’t know if they regret their lot in life, but I know I am ready to soar right past the tail end of Winter into some more seasonable weather … soon.

Day after day, the weather has definitely grabbed the headlines.

And Mother Nature and Old Man Winter have ganged up on us again and again.

They have not discriminated on where to inflict their wrath.

Nope. It doesn’t matter what part of the USA you live in – today you are “it”.

The Big Chill continues here and has virtually eliminated the walking regimen as you must surrender to the elements. Walking these days is just a Catch-22 … either the sidewalks are clear but it is too brutally cold to walk, or, it is not sub-zero, but it is snowing like crazy.

I miss my regimen of springing out of bed to have breakfast, get some piddling things done in the house and then going out for a walk.

Instead, a ritual has replaced the regimen wherein I feel like Fred the Baker at Dunkin’ Donuts who sleepwalks from his bed straight out of the house into the cold and snow mumbling “time to make the donuts” … oh horrors, I have become that guy. These days the alarm goes off and I look at it as if I’ve never seen it before, while slamming down the buzzer and rolling over with a sneer. Who wants to leave the confines of the cozy bed, having trudged out day after day in this, the second coldest February on record?

Once again my friends in both Carolinas and Virginia got a day off from work today so they did not need to contend with the heavy snow and ice. Their Facebook walls groan with Wintry-like pics, as their pals in the cold-weather states commiserate and cluck our tongues, and, of course share their pain. I hope none of my pals gave up swearing or sweets for Lent as they muddle through the rest of this almost-freakish weather, because I’m sure they have succumbed to their respective downfalls by now.

I say let’s just bypass March and go straight to April.

Yup, the yeas have it.

Well, it wasn’t because I hibernated like a bear (though I wish I could have in those subzero temps and nearly -30 wind chills we’ve had the past few days).

And … it wasn’t because I was hot and shucked off all my thermal layers and ran naked as a jaybird across the frozen tundra.

Nope.

None of those things.

The truth is that I went nearly 2 ½ days without accessing the internet or any social media.

It wasn’t by choice.

My internet connection was down.

Social media is very addicting . We titter over Twitter, and who doesn’t love chuckling over jokes? It is great perusing pics from back in the day posted on friends’ Facebook walls for TBT. There is no better opportunity to stay in touch with friends or family, especially if we are lame letter writers or despise long-winded phone conversations.

On Ash Wednesday morning I was reading comments on the “Click on Detroit” Facebook site about what people would give up for Lent nowadays. The graphic that accompanied the story had a variety of suggestions – alot of different words actually, like junk food, soda, swearing, sweets and all types of social media. Could you abandon social media and give up Twitter, Facebook or e-mail for the whole Lenten season which stretches some 40 days? I moved on to the next item on Facebook since I could not abandon e-mail and need to have internet access because I have worked from home the past six years. But, even if I didn’t work from home, I confess, sure … I’d miss the internet.

I have thought for a long time that we are way too dependent on social media. I use Facebook for chats with friends, but now I use it primarily to connect to 175 fellow “Patchies” – a group of e-pals, who, like me, either write blogs, columns, or have editorial responsibilities at Patch.com. We connect in a group and share ideas and links to our latest posts.

Internet is a must-have for me to remote into work. And we’ve been busy the past few weeks as my boss was leaving Wednesday morning to go out of town for five days. After he landed at the airport, he called me and said he had revised a 30-page time-sensitive document and would go to Staples and send a PDF of the revisions to me. I joked that perhaps he should have taken a book on the plane instead. Dutifully, I turned the computer on after the phone call – no internet. Well, we have a Plan “B” for when my router malfunctions – I rely on Ethernet cables to hard wire the laptop to the modem. Well, that works … as long as the modem works and I have an internet connection. I knew it was going to be a long evening.

Last April I got a new modem from my internet service provider and a new state-of-the-art router. I figured I was good to go for at least three or four years. Last Wednesday, I lost my connection for three hours because my ISP was having “issues in the neighborhood”. It was annoying but I dealt with it. Then this past Wednesday when it happened again, I made a quick call and the company confirmed there were “issues in the neighborhood”. Wryly, I mumbled to myself “is this going to be like Prince Spaghetti Day – an every-Wednesday occurrence?” I shut down my computer and came back long after the expected time for restoration of service. That dreaded bright yellow shield was still displayed in the connection bars hours after the estimated completion of service time.

Stubbornly, I stayed at the computer, hoping to will the internet to spring back to life. I began writing my next blog post, yet all the while my right eye was trained to the task bar waiting for the yellow shield to disappear. Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking and the hours were sliding away, with that project to be done languishing somewhere in cyberspace.

Finally, I did a diagnostic and knew I had to re-connect.

I trudged downstairs to do the usual fix-its … pull out all the plugs, count to 10, replace them and wait for the line of colors on the router and modem to start up like a string of lights on a Christmas tree. I held my breath and tapped my foot. All systems were go on the router … but, not so much on the modem where green lights blinked and flickered. Green for everything else in the world usually signifies “go”, but I needed orange lights. Not good. This modem has no reset button. Clearly, the modem was down for the count. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

I raced back upstairs where a slew of phone calls then ensued – first to my boss to tell him the joyous news. The second call was to my ISP, where I, the angry customer, wanted to know why her new modem was no longer functioning now that “work in the neighborhood” was finished. I then semi-politely inquired if a ping might restore the modem so that its flashing orange lights would return and I’d know “all systems were go”.

Well, first we had to troubleshoot. Back-and-forth to the basement, where it was decided the ping to the modem did not resuscitate it and it was dead as a doornail. I sighed a few more times and headed back upstairs.

At midnight, we finished troubleshooting and I politely asked for the earliest appointment Thursday so that I could complete my deadline assignment, and, I again stressed the urgency of having my internet hook-up restored post-haste. “Ms. Linda” he began … “we can schedule you in between noon and two on Thursday and you will get a new modem. Now, can I interest you in a bundle?” “No” I barked, totally bypassing my manners and leaving any of the ladylike responses I was brought up to automatically mouth when asked a question, way behind in the dust. I replaced the receiver with a loud thud, thinking that the phone was the next thing to break, then I scurried off to bed.

When my tech arrived at the door on Thursday, the temperature and wind chills were dangerously low. I ushered him into the house and we discussed the weather as we went downstairs to the basement. He did his usual techy checks and turned to me and said “your upstream/downstream isn’t looking good here” … well, I wanted to quip that could be bad if I were a salmon, but kept that comment to myself.

Next he unpackaged a new modem. I spied that large, jet black modem, thinking it was the perfect fit for my over-sized Netgear Nighthawk router I had installed last Spring and it looked like a big brother to my spindly current modem which always tips over. He moved the new modem and cord near the register where the heat was pouring out after saying “it was so cold in the truck that the modem needs to heat up and I can’t get the cord to straighten out” … I started to say “well, we don’t want to have a kinky modem” but that sounded like some shady line out of the movie or book “50 Shades of Grey” so I cancelled that comment though it was on the tip of my tongue.

I watched his cold fingers as they fumbled with gizmos and gadgets and he tested this and that. He made notes on a tiny device, thumbs tapping furiously on the keyboard. Not being a texter myself, I marveled at the dexterity when surely his hands must’ve been very cold.

He explained as he went along, that he went through a process of elimination and then said “gotta check your wiring in the backyard – back in a bit”; he returned some twenty minutes later, with snow-encrusted pant legs and a beet red face, and announced “well, I rewired everything out back because those wires were in pretty bad shape, so I don’t know how you ever got a signal before at all” to which I nodded sagely, thinking to myself, this surely will be the fix.

After more diagnostics, he shook his head, however, and said “still not good – gotta go to the pole, back in 20 minutes” … I stayed downstairs, while 20 minutes turned into an hour. I saw his shadow in the window well and could hear his cleats going back and forth on the sidewalk. Finally, he emerged, redder in the face and through numb lips said “I couldn’t find anything wrong, but there is an outage – I’ll call it in as soon as my phone is unfrozen” whereupon he pointed to his personal phone and a work phone, similar in size, which were clapped together, their rubber edges frozen seemingly forever. He tried to pry them apart with all his might, and couldn’t, so I told him to stand under the ceiling heat register where his fingers and the phones could get unfrozen quickly.

He reported the outage and promised the problem would be repaired within two hours and I’d be back in business.

Well, that was good news and I shot back a wan smile, which was the best I could muster after the first day of “going bare”.

By Thursday night, there was still no internet. Another late-night call to the ISP who said to go unplug everything and she’d send a modem signal. Despite my protestations that I’d been there and done that already, I was told to “go back and do it again” … nothing.

She scheduled me for first thing Friday morning.

I parked myself, like a potted plant, near the phone at 7:45 a.m. My 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. window passed and no tech. I called – nothing had ever been scheduled. My blood began to boil, and it wasn’t just the furnace that was running non-stop as it was so cold outside.

At that point, I abandoned all ladylike mannerisms I’d every possessed and told my ISP that I had an assignment to get done and could wait no longer.

I was told Saturday morning was the next availability for a service call and that infuriated me. I called around, garnering alot of chatter and promises and the runaround for the next few hours. I made and received at least 20 calls over the course of the day Friday. I documented each person’s name that I spoke to and was mentally categorizing them into “very helpful”, “helpful” and “not so helpful” and I was starting to feel like Jack Lemmon’s character, George Kellerman, in “The Out of Towners”.

My second tech arrived at 5:30 p.m. He had to scramble underneath the dropped ceiling to find the wires, went back outside and examined the outside wires, then popped his head in the door and announced “going out to the pole – don’t know when I’ll be back”, so this time I headed back upstairs. Before the ordeal was over, he discovered there was a software glitch on the pole. He summoned a computer tech who turned on a floodlight as darkness had settled in. He was hoisted up in the bucket and fixed the problem in a matter of minutes.

Finally … I was back online, but only to be overwhelmed with a slew of work e-mails from my boss that had accrued while I was whiling away the hours in the pre-World Wide Web days. Can we live without the internet? I dunno, but on those days when there are big-time computer hiccups, I know I am willing to go back to the quill pen.

Old Man Winter is kickin’ out the hits, more than the late DJs Gary Owens and Casey Kasem. But now the warm-weather states got a taste of Winter with ice and snow. My friend Evelyn who lives in Virginia, whom I mentioned in my post on Saturday, enjoyed a day off from work after Richmond got 8 inches of snow. She texted me, eager to show off her icicles which were lined up in a row and already starting to drip. All my school buddies who have moved to warmer climates posted photos on their respective Facebook walls to show the ice and snow on their decks and in and around their yards as well. Just the other day, a South Carolina pal spoke about her honeysuckle bush that had bloomed and the frogs that were already croaking in the nearby creek. I must admit I was jealous for that weather – but not for what they are dealing with now. Southeast Michigan enjoyed a weather break today – it got to 20 degrees! Just perfect for trotting out and grabbing yourself a fad-laden, wonderful-tasting paczki for Fat Tuesday if you were so inclined. Some people were lined up as early as 3:00 a.m. for these delectable goodies.