Yay for feedback! There are people who read this stoopid blahg grok grok who are pretty fluent when it comes to technology and they had comments to make about Volcano Mama and her Internet Tips. grok grok Excuse me a minute. (Froggy, I wasn’t talking about you and no, you can’t use Garage Band right now. Go play on the highway.) Sorry about that rude interruption.

Karen wrote, “um, aren’t ‘application’ and ‘program’ synonymous?” Dum de dum de dum. Hmmm. Good question. Didya do any research before writing that, Volcano Mama? Well, Vmom was thinking along the lines that a “program” is a generic term for a set of instructions for a computer to follow. “Application program” aka “application” is a set of instructions designed for a more specific use. Whatis.com says it pretty well. Vmom thought her intended audience might get confused by “application” alone. Say what? Application? For what? A spot in the assisted living facility? Get the drift?

Then the Marquis (or maybe it was the Grand Poohbah, I wasn’t sure) wrote, “If you subscribe to either MSN or Yahoo as an ISP they provide their own proprietary browser.” “I stand corrected,” says Vmom. “MSN and Yahoo *can* be browsers and are obviously useful to some people as such.” But again, Volcano Mama’s intended audience might get confused by that. They don’t have time for anything more than about one or two mouse clicks. In general, Vmom is not a terrific fan of proprietary software on the web, but that’s just her not-so-humble opinion, inspired in part by what the gang over at WCC has beaten into her rather one-dimensional brain.

Volcano Mama’s intended audience is people who want to use the Internet for very specific purposes. Like emailing their grandchildren or reading someone’s stoopid blahg. They want to get on there, do their business and get off quick. No news sites or flash videos, thank you very much. They do not have time to fiddly-diddle around learning all of the various complexities of using computers and browsers and surfing the Internet. They are too busy going to water-ex and taiko drumming performances and foreign films and classes at the college and visiting their friends at Tendercare and eating corn chowder at Penny’s and reading the newspaper down by the waterfront and cogitating about improvements to their properties. So Vmom is trying to keep it pretty basic.

Anyway, yay for feedback! Keep it coming. One of these days, I’m gonna get off my you-know-what and install WordPress on this here blahg so I can turn on some comments and y’all can comment to your heart’s delight and get into flame wars with each other and the whole works.

And finally, Sam and I were certainly on the same wavelength yesterday as she also mentioned the sound of wind in pine trees in her blahg. Except she didn’t call it a swhooooshing noise, she called it susurration. Her vocabulary wins!

Hose nozzles. Candle holders. A debit card. Keys. Those are some of the things that are missing around here. This is starting to feel like an octo house. I know I put the hose nozzles away last fall. I remember putting them in some logical, obvious place down in the landfill dungeon. I cannot find them. Anywhere. The landfill dungeon is a dank, dark, spidery place. It is really not fun to look around down there for stuff. I think that octogenarians are sneaking into my house and gleefully squirreling my stuff away into odd little nooks and crannies. Either that or a certain ol’ man out there on the other side somewhere is trying to mess with my mind. Where are my nozzles? I need my nozzles.

I do not know where to start. Even without skunk cabbage or grinches or sightings or wine shops or ice floes or taiko drummers or fires real and imagined, that was a pretty wild trip. I don’t actually have a nickname for my youngest G3 Fin cousin Jane. She’s just Jane. Don’t get me wrong, this Jane is *not* Plain Jane in any way-shape-form, but, somehow, Jane just seems to be enough name for Jane. Anyway, she needed to get off The Planet Ann Arbor and I can’t exactly talk about my state of mind, restless is the best I can do. So. Road trip! Where? North, of course, to check up on the beach and the octogenarians et al.

On the surface, Jane and I do not seem to have a lot in common. She is young and single and employed and well-traveled. I am old and loooonng-married and unemployed and my travel consists mainly of bombing up and down the I75 SUV Speedway. Over the years, Jane and I have spent a lot of time together, sitting on the beach watching boats and birds and people through binoculars and indulging in an occasional adult beverage. Coffee or beer, use your imagination. But we have never taken a trip together. Fun? Yeah! We have some similar interests including hiking and kayaking and driving and an occasional adult beverage (or two), among others. We both like to read, although my stack of unread New Yorkers is *much* higher than Jane’s. Oh the other hand, I have probably read more kids’ books than she has, at least I’ve probably read more of them aloud. I dunno if that strikes a balance or not and, anyway, who cares. We seem to like about the same level of excitement. Not too much sitting around but when it is time to sit, it’s time to sit.

I have to report that there are some definite signs that things are different in the Great White North. Where there was once a schedule, you know, 10:30 pick up the mail, 2:00 get the paper, 5:00 cocktail, etc., etc., a social calendar of sorts is emerging, not that the things on the schedule are not being done too. But things are going pretty well up there. Silver linings exist and life is moving on. A matriarchical society is emerging and, if I were the boogeyman, I would not want to mess with some of those octo-women. Thinking of them gives me strength on the days that I just do not want to get out of bed. And there are more of those lately than I want to admit but please don’t worry about me. I *do* get out of bed. Every day. Early. And I walk. Every day. Early. And I am definitely okay. Or will be. And, you know, The Houghton Lake Resorter is crazy and Car Kit can just be damned and can I be a taiko drummer too?

Overheard at Penny’s Kitchen: “Let’s move the time of water-ex to after the day care kids swim so there’ll be more pee in the water and it’ll be warmer.”

First and most important, Sam (dog, not archaeologist), was thirteen years old yesterday! Happy Birthday, old man! Other than that, we have a guest blahgger today and it is none other than The Commander:

This morning, at about 8:30 AM, as usual, I went over to see Jack for a few moments before I started my daily routine. About that time he is in the rehab room doing his little exercises so I walked down the hall and could see him sitting as usual — facing away from me in front of the big windows. His head was bent over something which turned out to be a puzzle designed to exercise the mind. Sooo I put my arm around his neck and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. He turned around to look at me and!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it wasn’t Jack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Jack was one chair down doing something else. Everyone in the room – which was 6 or 7 people, just roared with laughter. After they stopped laughing someone asked me how long we had been married and how we had met. I may never live that down.

Actually, I have some experience with mistaking someone for my husband. But I have a pretty good excuse because the GG has an identical twin. His name is Bob and they look, well, identical. They were numbers 5 and 6 out of 10 kids and when they were born, their oldest sibling, Gary, was 6. Sound like fun? Their aunt Gale once told me, “the twins were holy terrors”, and she is absolutely right but that’s a whole nother blahg. Anyway, I definitely can tell the difference between them but sometimes, when I’m not totally paying attention, I get them mixed up. Fortunately for Bob, I have never accosted him in the overt way that The Commander accosted that poor, unsuspecting old man.

First and most important, Sam (dog, not archaeologist), was thirteen years old yesterday! Happy Birthday, old man! Other than that, we have a guest blahgger today and it is none other than The Commander:

This morning, at about 8:30 AM, as usual, I went over to see Jack for a few moments before I started my daily routine. About that time he is in the rehab room doing his little exercises so I walked down the hall and could see him sitting as usual — facing away from me in front of the big windows. His head was bent over something which turned out to be a puzzle designed to exercise the mind. Sooo I put my arm around his neck and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. He turned around to look at me and!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it wasn’t Jack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Jack was one chair down doing something else. Everyone in the room – which was 6 or 7 people, just roared with laughter. After they stopped laughing someone asked me how long we had been married and how we had met. I may never live that down.

Actually, I have some experience with mistaking someone for my husband. But I have a pretty good excuse because the GG has an identical twin. His name is Bob and they look, well, identical. They were numbers 5 and 6 out of 10 kids and when they were born, their oldest sibling, Gary, was 6. Sound like fun? Their aunt Gale once told me, “the twins were holy terrors”, and she is absolutely right but that’s a whole nother blahg. Anyway, I definitely can tell the difference between them but sometimes, when I’m not totally paying attention, I get them mixed up. Fortunately for Bob, I have never accosted him in the overt way that The Commander accosted that poor, unsuspecting old man.

Confusion? Say what? For about five minutes around noon today, I was actually popular for once in my life 😉 First Lizard Breath called me. As I was talking to her, there were some little beepity noises in the connection and I thought it was because my troll phone often does strange things up here in The Great White North. But it turned out that Mouse was trying to call, so I called her back and while I was talking to her, The Commander’s land line rang and *that* was the GG. For me. All the while, Radical Betty was banging on the door trying to get in. Besides that, I did manage to successfully put out the garbage last night with minimal supervision and no blue language. But blue language was definitely in order during a Waste Management/National City confuddlement, proving for the umpteen millionth time that garbage processing is never boring. And we won’t talk about why my debit card was declined at The Mole Hole but it had nothing to do with Waste Management. That is about all, I guess. It could be worse. The Commander has just read me an obituary about a 44-year-old woman who died in Hessel. Her husband died in 1994. They had some children and as sad as it is, my first thought is that at least those kids will not have to deal with wheeling their old decrepit parents around Tendercare. But, really, Tendercare is a pretty good place and there were definitely a few moments today when I was beginning to wonder if maybe they had a couple more beds over there, either for The Commander or me! Grok Grok. No, you can’t go to Tendercare! grok grok. You need to help me grok grok catch flies and spiders grok grok and keep my flying machine going grokGROK!!! Kee-reist!