Did You Miss Me?

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zenilorac @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/zenilorac/

Usually I am totally unaware of my shortcoming. My mom and my mother-in-law will shush me when I get excited about a subject causing my voice raise. My brother will say something like “You know that you know how to do that,” when I get lazy and am actually believing that I can’t do it, whatever it may be.

This past week, my patience, creativity, empathy and constructiveness have been tested. I surprised myself a little. I found patience and constructiveness to be manageable. Even my creativity and empathy weren’t a total disaster until Thursday.

This run of tests occurred when Hubby came home from work at 11:00pm Monday night and announced that we should get both of our PCs a good once over by our PC repairman, Rik Richter. He got his business going about the same time we purchased our house 5 1/2 years ago. I was one of his first customers. Since then, his business has grown. Here in the Tennessee Mountains, his company services 3 (or is it 4) counties now. And it isn’t just individuals like me. He has several contracts going with different companies.

This last Tuesday, Hubby loaded both CPUs into the back of our Blazer and we took them to Richter’s Technology. The office manager/receptionist said that she’d try to push for maintenance completion by the next day but it could be the day after. Jason, a technologist I hadn’t heard of before would be doing the job.

When Wednesday came and the phone didn’t ring during the day, I felt no anxiety. I had my post scheduled for Tuesday morning and I knew that there was a good possibility that my PC wouldn’t be ready until Thursday. However, at first I was at a loss as to what to do with my time that day. Tuesdays are usually reserved for cleaning the bathrooms and washing the towels and bedding. Neither takes up a full day. In fact, except for remaking the beds, these tasks together only take about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. If I had my PC, I’d be working on my writing project, checking my email and reading posts of friends.

My creativity and constructiveness have definitely become dull and in dire need of sharpening. I finally discovered a book I had bought but hadn’t read yet, Mother Earth Father Sky. My eyes got tired after six chapters though. You see (no pun intended) I have astigmatism. My glasses help but they don’t correct it completely. So there I was trying to find something else to do with my time. When I went into the kitchen to grab another cup (okay, big mug) of coffee, I could see how dirty the walls were in there. I don’t have that ‘backsplash’ effect so the wall showing in between where the cupboards ended and the counter begins had all sorts of food spots on it. It didn’t take long to clean but it did give me something to do. To tell you the truth, I think that maybe a backsplash would be more difficult to clean seeing that all it is is a bunch of little tiles.

Hubby called on the PCs on Thursday. They still weren’t ready. An ‘emergency’ with one of the companies had come up. When I think of an emergency, I don’t think of a computer with a virus. I think of a person in the emergency room of a hospital playing touch and go with death. Nevertheless, that’s the reason Hubby was given.

Yes, I was a little miffed about the answer received. But then I started wondering, maybe this was meant to be because I needed to be pulled away from the computer. I’ll admit, I seem to have an ‘on again off again’ love affair with my dear contraption. And usually the affection is on, not off. If I really had an itching to write that was bad enough, I’d get out paper and pen, right?

With all this time on my hand this last Thursday, I cleaned windowsills, vacuumed and used my Swiffer duster on the ceiling fans. I watched the DVD, Driving Miss Daisy and read for the rest of the day. I even got in a 45-minute nap in. Unfortunately, that evening I got sick. I don’t know what caused it but that doesn’t make any difference. It wouldn’t change the fact that I was sick.

Yesterday Hubby called about the CPUs again. Mine was ready but his wasn’t. I still wasn’t feeling good but was relieved to know that they hadn’t just blow us off. When Hubby came back with my beloved black box, I was on the sofa, drinking tea and munching on saltine crackers, the food of champions who puke.

I was using the PC a little yesterday late afternoon, but I really couldn’t get anything done. I was still kind of weak.

Anyway, if you were wondering where I’ve been this week, if you’ve been missing me at all, now you know my sorted tale of woe.