The DN

1   The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, 'I — I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'
'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'
'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'
'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.
'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

2  I couldn't have put it better myself. Don't try this at home. 

3  The switch from Xanga to Blogger or to Whatever has left me befuddled. 

4  I think I thought I launched this today. I think I thought it launched easily to my two Facbooks. I'll explain the two Facebooks a little later in this piece. And I think I thought...

5 I think I thought a lot of fancy things.

6  Enough things that I haven't world enough nor time even to begin explaining it all. 

7   I don't have the wherewithal. I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day IS very confusing!

8   For one thing, once I made the switch yesterday morning I had to change to this Thief-in-the-Night called Google Plus. 

9   I feel a bit like I got my finger caught in a Pixar mousetrap. 

10  I can still write, but right now I neither like nor trust Google Plus. 

11  Listen: I was running late yesterday morning for a bazillion reasons but I was determined to get the DN out there to the many more.

12  Instead, I was asked to sign up for Google Plus, whatever that is, and fly with friends who are in my "circles,"

13   

14  I stood befuddled.

15  I have already let it be known that I have two Facebooks. One is for family and friends, the other is for alumni, friends, colleagues, ex-colleagues, and even current students. 

16 I signed up for Google Plus because I had no choice: if I wanted this to launch, I had to do it. YESTERDAY morning.

17  This required sitting around the computer signing my life away to this thief. It was join or see ya later. 

18  Just as I was almost out the door, I tried cutting and pasting the link to the DN on gmail's Blogger. 

19   It magically appeared! It seemed up to date, so I sent it off to my alumni/colleagues/student Facebook.

20   It totally worked, posted, and looked pretty spiffy. 

21   I figured I could do the home/family one later in the day. They enjoy the DN, but many are not immersed in its long history. 

22   AnywayZ. Irrelevant Sidebar: Gone With the Wind is playing on TCM as I tack away at this.

23   Where was I? OH! AnywayZ I stayed after school again to work with a colleague, and we stayed for a good part of the afternoon. 

24   I got home and anxiously went online to see if the DN was still there. 

25  <basketball buzzer>

26   I went on my gmail and pressed some button that brought up about a thousand emails from people in my "circle."

27   I have NO idea what that was about, nor why the DN had disappeared from Facebook. 

28   I absolutely couldn't figure out anything. All I know is that I had suddenly changed to Google Plus and getting nothing but annoyed by it. 

29   The DN is on a deadline; any changes are difficult to hunt down after a hard day's work. I haven't the world nor the time, as I said earlier. 

30   Well, enough grousing. 

31   Yesterday afternoon I began a new DN, this one, and had done a pretty good job. The only challenge was this: I forgot to save-as-I go. 

32   I know, right? I had reached almost 74 items, because I wanted to give a few shout outs to some people. 

33   <basketball buzzer>

34   I didn't want to stop. I typed well into the early evening. 

35   By the final few items, I was trying to put the cool guy emblem beneath my signature ~H~. THAT'S how far I had gotten. That's his name: cool-guy. No caps. It's like a signature or some nonsense. 

36   I was to drop cool-guy in and then call it a night. 

37   Cool-guy appeared and then Toshiba froze. 

38    I waited. And waited. And waited. 

39    Finally the entire computer lost contact with the wireless. EVERYTHING was lost. 

40   I had a g-r-r-r-r-r-r moment, but figured, "Why?"

41   So.

42   Here we are. 

43   I find it ironic that Gone With the Wind is on TCM right now. The title alone...

44   I just smile. = ) <-------- a second feeble attempt at producing a smiley guy emoticon in as many days. 

45   Moving on, Part the First: Okay, now for some major congrats!!! Two days ago my daughter Nicole had her first day of school. It was her third year in a row, so the second she stepped into the classroom she officially was tenured. 

46   If the world needs anything, it is Nicoley to be protected in this profession. She teaches with passion like nobody I have ever seen. And now she will continue to help her students grow and learn. 

47   She sometimes thinks she isn't reaching them the way she would like. I think she's wrong. If you go to her room, you might see her open a window, hold out her finger, and have a bird alight, and sing Julie Andrews' tunes. 

48  She's THAT good! So congrats to Nicoley!!! And thank you for spending your summer saving this Old Brown Shoe from himself. You ARE that good!

49   Moving on, Part Two: I would also like to dovetail that with giving huge props to my daughter Caitlin, who is the veryapple of my eye!

50   The same day it that Nicole was tenured she came over to the house after work. If I may preface: I have a blood condition that requires me keeping off my left leg and keeping it elevated. On Sunday I got tired of sitting around. Helene was laying floor so that we could convert a larger room into an office for me, and I was lying in my chair doing nothing. 

51   I couldn't stand not doing anything, and decided that I felt good enough to completely clean the garage. So I did, but I got into a zone and refused to stop until everything was perfect/organized, neat and clean. I succeeded, but never really kept off my leg. 

52  The following day I taught, but my leg had no pain, so I stood and lectured, and THEN sat down at my desk with my leg down. Not good when the doctors orders were to keep my leg elevated. 

53   This was Nicole's first day, and her day of tenure and new students and all. I got home, got into some comfortable shorts, and lay down in a chair I affectionately call The Cloud.

54    I dozed. It was a hot day, so I just sank into The Cloud and drifted off. 

55   A voice awakened me. It was Nicole. She had come over to share her first day and to see how I was doing. 

56   "Dad, have you looked at your leg?" I looked down. My leg looked like it should have been roasted in the oven. It had swelled considerably, AND it was as red as a stoplight. 

57   "You need to call the doctor." Helene came in, saw the leg and said, "Oh my God! Call the doctor NOW!" I balked, because I knew that the symptoms would put me in emergency. 

58   I'll keep this part short, even though it was a series of doctors to whom I spoke: the last nurse to talk to me told me, "You know, we get a little older and we sometimes get immature about not being able to do things we used to do. The doctor wants you to go to emergency."

59   I knew what that meant. My experiences with emergency usually would last from seven to nine hours. I didn't want that, yet I knew I had to go. I told Nicoley to go home and to plan her lessons. Helene and I got ready, and soon I found myself walking past our awesome dog Phoebes. She looked up sadly. I went outside, and the clouds were illuminated by the moon. Across the street our neighbor, who is our neighborhood Jesus guy, was moving back and forth in his front yard. I looked at the clouds. I looked at the leaves. And then I looked at my home. I braced myself and got in the car. I looked back one more time at my home. 

60  We got to the hospital and the staff was completely awesome and attentive. Helene kept texting Nicole and Caitlin. We didn't want to upset others in the family so we kept it quiet. Caitlin offered to come down, and I said, "She doesn't need to come down here from Sacramento. I'll be okay." 

61  Caitlin had different ideas. She packed up and left Sac at nine p.m. to be with us, and to relieve Helene if she needed to go home. 

62   That's the character of my daughter. She was in the car and on the road when one doctor talked about doing a "procedure." That scared me, because that word is a euphemism for an operation. 

63   Soon however, the main doctor came in. He examined the leg and felt confident that the bright redness had nothing to do with my circulation and a lot to do with having cleaned the garage. He prescribed some anti-biotics and then allowed them to let me go, AFTER ripping about sixty postage stamps off my chest and legs. 

64   Helene contacted Caitlin and told her we were okay and that she could drive back home. She was in Concord at that point. That's my girl. That's my baby, And I love her always! I was glad she got to go back home, because it was an exhausting evening. 

65   It turned out that all my vitals were off-the-chart good: kidneys, liver, blood pressure, cholesterol, and all the rest. I was to get the meds and head home. The pharmacy took around an hour, but that was fine. When Helene and I got to the front door of the hospital, we were almost laughing at how slow the pharmacy was. Of all things. 

66   We looked out the window and saw that fifty gazillion buckets of water were making it look like it was storming outside. 

67   Turns out that it WAS storming outside. I watch WAY too much TMC movies. It looked old-time movie fake.

68   We got home before midnight and somehow had a snack and then a deep sleep. 

69   Today is our millionth Anniversary. I hope to take Helene out to a nice restaurant tonight and celebrate all million years. She has put up with more than any person ever should, so we intend to have a really nice night tonight. 

70   I was able to teach yesterday, get home, write this, have it all disappear, and reappear through a re-write. We somehow got it all done. 

71   We truly will have a lovely night. To my readers: You have a lovely day and a lovely night. And remember this always:

72   Live life. 

73   Love life. See you again.

74   Peace. 

~H~