See, I Have This Friend….

I was mowing my yard Tuesday night, and, well, it’s never really very pretty when I mow my yard. It’s all I do, and it isn’t pretty, and so my summer has been an ugly little season.

Here’s what it’s like when I mow my yard. I start out pretty peppy. I put on my mowing shoes (the walking shoes I deemed one day too ugly for general wear), my mowing hat (either the B’burg Community Band bucket hat or the red baseball cap with the Mr Peabody patch on the front), then I go and get my gardening gloves, and a sweat band for each wrist. Because mowing is a sweaty proposition. Then I grab my iPod, the keys to my shed, and I head outside.

I gas up the mower, pop in the iPod, and let ‘er rip. And it rips for about 15 minutes, and I get more and more tired, and the grass-bagging activities get harder and harder, and I cuss and become of a very foul demeanor, and by the time I’ve heaved the last grass from the mower bag to a leaf and garden bag, I’m walking aimlessly around my yard breathing and sweating, breathing heavily, and loudly, so that with each exhale I let out a high-pitched whine. I’m walking around my yard going, “Heeuh, heeuh, heeuh,” like I’m being tortured, which I guess I am. Actually, it sounds like the bray of a big ol’ donkey, which I guess I am, too.

Anyway, all that was moving along as planned Tuesday when I hit about the midway point of the back yard, stopped to unload more grass into the bag, bent over to unhinge the mower bag, and whammo. Stung by a bee once again. The little bastard that got me this time was a bee, not a wasp, and he stung me on the back of my neck, right where my neck and head meet, right at the base of my hairline. I cussed a blue streak, came inside, started throwing hats and gloves and - well, not the iPod, I wouldn’t throw that - and made a baking soda poultice to put on my neck. I stood there awhile, just like last time only without the tears.

Then I went back out, loopy and in pain, to finish up the yard. It was dark by the time I finished, and I put all my stuff back in the shed and “heeuh’ed” my way back inside.

I really hate mowing, and I hope it snows tomorrow.

I also am now sporting a large knot at the base of my head, and I’m still rather loopy, and I’m convinced that bee venom is just coursing through my bloodstream, and before you know it I’ll sprout antennae and start buzzing.

That has absolutely nothing to do with what I was going to write about, though.

What I was going to write about is that this past weekend I once again hauled my cookies, and my computer, to B’burg and Mr M’s, and he was going to try once again to put a second drive and more memory in my computer. I don’t know if I even mentioned this before, the last time I did the same, two weeks ago, and nothing really went as planned. My computer was so full that during the making of my epic “2001 (Sort Of)” I actually got a message telling me I didn’t have a enough space to be running in a happy manner, and I had to go jettison a bunch of stuff just to finish the movie.

So Mr M bought some more stuff last week and was prepared to give it another go on Saturday, and the more he worked the less progress he was making. He’d decided to install the drive I’d bought internally, then finally gave up (and it was a fair give-up, he did try) and decided to make it an external drive. He needed a case for this external drive, and I believe that because I don’t know a thing about it and he sounded very emphatic. He asked if I wanted to make a trip to town with him to pick one up, and I love a good trip to town, so I said sure.

We got to the store, and Mr M went back to the computer parts section while I was hanging around speakers and laptops, and he came over to me and said this:

“I’d much rather buy you a new computer than work on yours. Pick something out.”

And of course the first thing out of my mouth was, “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m saving for one anyway.” (At the time I had a whopping $38 in the New Computer Fund.) But he went over and started looking at computers, and I went over and followed him, and it was such a nice and kind offer, and I thought, well, actually I thought, “What a nice and kind offer.” Then I thought, “If he’s really serious, I’m going to say yes, dammit.”

And he was, and I said, “Yes, dammit.”

We headed back to Poderosa East with a new computer, one with a shitload of memory and a drive as big as all outdoors. I can now make movies that would bring a tear to Cecil B DeMille’s eye, surf the net with alarming speed, and, according to Stennie and Mike, get another Facebook doggie. (My original, Gordon, froze up my computer so badly I had to delete him to a large acre of cyberfarm where he can run free. And I really don’t know if I want another one. You actually have to pay attention to them or they’ll starve. Does my already delicate psyche need that?)

Anyway, I can now do all those things and more, but this is Thursday, and from Sunday till about yesterday it was all in doubt. The transfer of information didn’t go swimmingly, which I was blaming on the hated Vista, but I was assured by Stennie it wasn’t Vista, it was just reloading and installing stuff from computer to computer.

I limped along Sunday night, and when I say limped, I mean crawled, I stayed up till 6:45 on Monday morning and went to bed with nary an improvement from when I arrived home and hooked things up. I was hinky and cranky and all sorts of other things that end in y, and I didn’t have my iTunes or my bookmarks, which was just killing me. (The iTunes was a nightmare, but more about that later.)

I also, for now, anyway, have none of my stored email addresses. So I’m asking you at this time, if you email me, or have ever emailed me, to do so right now. Give me your most current email address, lest ye never hear from me by mail again.

Anyway, Monday was a holiday and I spent all of it (save the four hours I slept) at the computer with Mr M at the remote assitance. He went above and beyond the call of duty and got a few things running, but the iTunes was still not working, and I was missing my bookmarks. And really, without those, why do we own these machines?

Hucklebug recording time came along, and afterwards Stennie was kind enough to give it a try with the iTunes, and got it all going. That lightened my mood considerably, as did the beers during recording, and then she gave me written instructions on the bookmarks. (Which Mr M did also, he says, but I must have been ignoring him during that, for which I apologize.)

The next day, the day of the bee sting, so I needed some good news, I got my bookmarks back, and from there it’s been smooth sailing. I’m walking around getting used to the new digs, and loving it. I’m all excited because I have a DVD burner, a first for me, and I’m going to play with it tonight and see if I can burn my movies to disc. My folks have never seen a Comfy Chair movie, so I thought if I could make a DVD of them, well, they’ll be confused, but probably proud nonetheless.

And so that’s what it’s like to have a generous friend. Cranky, yes, but that’s a façade. He’s really a sweetheart, even though he'd prefer that was kept secret.

And now I have to leave the comfort of the new computer to go do the trimming in my yard. I’m wearing long johns and a turtleneck. And gloves, and possibly a beekeeper’s mask.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* I also seem to have a cold. I think it's the bee venom.