Thursday, June 25, 2026

Fourteen days of pain and chaos


You know that thing that friends do at the stadium when their team makes a touchdown?  Where they slap high-fives and scream and holler and yell and jump around and fist bump?  Well, that’s what Marla and I did this afternoon (well, except for the jumping part) when she plugged an HTMI cable into my PC.  I confess I shed a tear or two of happiness.  I’m finally reconnected to my world.  Hallelujah.

Was it really two weeks of misery?  Yes it was.  Friday June 12th around noon I fell down and went boom.  Ouch.  Felt like a fool in front of dozens of my peers.  Tuesday my three angels showed up to pack the Dumble house even though I was the only one who couldn’t do a lick of work.  Wednesday the moving van showed up and hauled it all away.  If it hadn’t been for my friend Allen I might’ve postponed the entire thing.  He stepped right up to the plate and became my Hero of the Day.

Then came seven days of confusion.  You’ve undoubtedly heard about the missing mouse and the wayward monitor cord (which is still AWOL).  I cried and moaned and wailed for a solid week about everything – it’s really a good thing I wasn’t able to whine online, wasn’t it?  The strong, independent widow y’all know and love was an emotional mess, a pathetic helpless creature who wasn’t coping well at all.

In spite of myself, with a LOT of help from a LOT of friends, things began to take shape.  Little things, like AAA batteries for the TV remote, showed up.  Big things, like my king-size pillows, didn’t show up for several days.  I slept with an eight-inch Astros throw pillow under my head for three nights and was grateful to have it.  All my kitchen towels ended up in the bathroom and vice-versa.  See what I mean?

But today made it all go away.  I’ve fed my addiction to screen time for several hours.  Caught up on emails, paid some overdue bills online, filled out a Change of Address form, got a few more stats about my new blog’s health, and even did my word games and a hidden object puzzle.  I will sleep well tonight.

PS:  Thanks to everybody who helped.  Including but not limited to Marla, Donna, Cathy, Ned, Allen, Melvin, Paul, Debbie, Jerry, Bart, Bethany, Essie, Marijane and Margaret.  Friends rock! 

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