An interrupted blog

Superman became a senior in high school today..

This is the blog I was writing last night when news about the Georgia indictments broke, and of course then I was glued to the TV. The blog isn’t anything that meaningful—it won’t make you day or improve your life. Mostly, it’s just a chance for me to show off how adorable my grandson was at three and whine about my awful computer problem yesterday morning, with a grateful nod to my son, Colin for this patience with me. But what happened in Georgia may change all our lives. It may, probably will lead to difficult days, perhaps even the oft-threatened violence, but I am convinced we will come out better on the other side, and that the tensions and divisions that have beleaguered our nation since 2016 will begin to heal. I think as a country, a democracy, we had no choice but to prosecute our former president and his colleagues to the full extent of the law. And as Fani Willis emphasized, they are presumed innocent by the courts, something that they would deny others. Today is a day to be proud of America.

Hard for me to believe that the kid who ran around my kitchen in a Superman cape is now a senior in high school, but he is, all concerned with which class he should drop and which class he should sign up for. Wish I understood the process—if he didn’t want the class and didn’t need it for credits, how did he get signed up in the first place? He regaled us at supper with tales of the first day, and it sounded as expected—pretty much chaos.

Jacob headed out.

I put out a call on our neighborhood email list for back-to-school pictures of neighborhood children for the next issue of the newsletter, which as you may know I edit. I have been inundated with pictures—which is a good thing. Mostly I get pictures of elementary school children, but I have a few middle and high school. I know, however, there are a lot more high school students in our neighborhood. Perhaps, like Jacob, they don’t want their pictures published. Jacob will be chagrined to be the oldest one in the next newsletter—shh! Don’t tell him. I never intended to tell him about the Superman picture, but his mom couldn’t resist.

I was the one who needed to go back to school today. I had just barely begun work at my computer, when the cursor froze—and then disappeared. Totally. Gone. In a panic, I called my Colin. He spent an hour and a half on the phone with me, saying scroll here with the number key, hit this key, tab there. Do you have any idea how hard it is to naviage a computer without a cursor. Poor Colin was supposed to be preparing for two business phone calls this afternoon and instead he was helping his idiot mother. There would be gaps in our conversation, silences so long that I sometimes asked if he was still there. Other times I could hear the clack of his keyboard as he searched for a solution, I presume. I finally suggested we give it up, he prepare for and take his afternoon phone calls, and we’d reconnect in the evening.

He agreed but emailed a few minutes later with one more instruction. I tried it and eureka! The cursor reappeared. I cannot tell you how devastated I was at the prospect of a day without a computer. Call it an unhealthy addiction if you will, but I had no idea what I’d do all day—even the book I am reading is on my computer. By the by, airplane mode was the culprit and turning it off for half an hour or more part of the solution. Just turning it off and on again apparently doesn’t work. I have always said computers, like people, need time to collect themselves after a crisis.

North Texas is basking in a cool front. Tonight at ten o’clock, when it has been in the upper nineties most evenings, it is eighty-five—and a low of the mid-seventies is predicted. It’s not supposed to last long—a couple of days—and it apparently brings none of the rain we so badly need. But this brief cool front, like the indictments, is so welcome.

Have a great day everyone. Be proud that we live in America.