Sunday, January 11, 2009

Score!

Yet another winter storm roared through the Hudson Valley, dumping several inches of snow and sprinkling a half an inch of ice on top…just for the hell of it.

Oh, what a laugh Mother Nature must have...watching us mortals slipping and sliding, cursing and freezing…as we attempt to live some semblance of a normal life amidst her wildly fluctuating hormones. Not an easy feat…especially when it’s 25 degrees…and the roads are just starting to look like roads again…instead of one continuous snowy abyss.

Notice I said not easy….but far from impossible.

For the power of love (which could also be technically described in this instance as the power of obligation) gives us the strength we need to go where we have to go…and do whatever the hell we have to do.

Sorry if the language is bothersome…but I’m coming off half-a-day of exclusive family adult conversation, peppered with just enough alcohol to keep things interesting… so language a-la-sailor becomes par.

My sisters and I gathered at my dad’s for the celebration of the first in a very long string of winter birthdays for our family…starting with Dad. And since we were going to be at his house anyway, "it would be a good opportunity for me to continue with my forever-endless role as tech support for his new computer"....this according to him.

Nothin’ makes you more adept at unlocking the secret to separating AOL from that pesky AIM pop-up window like several glasses of Savignon. At the very least, you look like you know what you’re doing…and let’s face it…you (I) could honestly care less. I seem to recall signing him up for iTunes and when prompted for a password clue question, I entered “Who’s your favorite child?” I think you know the answer to this. Whether it is actually true or not is moot…according to iTunes, I’m golden….and we all know how big they are.

We gave Dad an iPod, as he’s an MP3-virgin. Within five minutes of listening and exclaiming over the phenomenal sound, he started questioning whether he could upgrade to the iPod with the video feature. We firmly told him that we could think of no reason why he would need to be mobile whilst watching a video…and then we handed him another light beer. After two beers, he said he felt lightheaded and needed to lie down…but I noticed he grabbed his iPod on the way out of the room. I figure he should be satisfied for the next several days, at least.

This gave us girls a chance to seriously catch up…which in my family means sharing and trading recent war stories…both the work-kind and the ones at home. Of course, everything’s got this hilarious edge to it…and it becomes all about embellishing your tale enough to elicit side-splitting laughter from your siblings, for that’s how you’re assured you’ve told the story correctly.


Add to that the prerequisite phone call from my brother in France...six hours ahead of us and a huge fan of Firefox...and as I patiently tolerate several minutes of his rant about how Firefox whoops IE7's butt, I'm thinking "Yeah? Talk to the hand, bro...unless you're comin' stateside to act in the role of 'tech support', it all means diddly"...and I quickly hand the phone to my sister, who holds her own in a verbal-abuse-exchange that included several suggestions as to where he can put his fabulous-French-countryside-view and a rather hostile warning about the safety of several of his personal items left behind and within her easy reach. Then we need to track down the birthday boy...as my brother reminds us that he didn't call to speak to us at all. (Da French can be tres-RUDE.)

I arrived home with these:


The item on the left will evidently supply “Effortless entertainment at the touch of a button”…and who wouldn’t want that? My sister had given this to Dad for Christmas and he was looking for the receipt so he could return it. When all he received was a scathing-stare from my sister, he placed it into my already-waiting arms…knowing instantly that this was right up my alley. (Never mind that Cloudy is corkless…that is absolutely not the point.)

The item on the right is (obviously) a shaker…but my eyes lit up when I saw the “Tangueray” label etched into its side, as I exclaimed “wherever did you find this?”

Gee, it was like it was MY birthday….

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a really fun day!

Anonymous said...

Yay, you made it out despite the wintry weather. Looks like you even got rewarded too! Awesome.

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