After I talked myself down from the inevitable near-panic attack that threatened, I had a very tense day until said birth-father and my daughter called to tell me that he'd arrived safely. I imagined all sorts of things. Vagrants robbing him. Crashes. Him missing a connection and being stranded and frightened.
A little background on this, but just a little: his birth-father and I split when he was 9 months old. Since then he's visited with him 3 times, each visit initiated by me. Since entering his mid-he teens, he's been getting more and more curious about the guy, so we set up another visit. He'll split his time between him and his sister.
This means that for the first time since I was nineteen years old, which was
Which means that when Sweet Baboo isn't here, I'm HOME ALONE.
So here's what I did when I was HOME ALONE yesterday: I set up a rarely-used desktop computer and moved it into our exercise room with a medium-sized flat-panel LCD monitor and a decent pair of speakers so that I can watch movies and exercise DVDs on it, as well as listen to music or audio books while I work out.
After I set up the computer, I started ripping nearly every single CD we have into the hard-drive and copying all my Mp3s to it. I have a considerable collection, and since the exercise "room" is actually the dining room right off the kitchen and living room, I can now listen to whatever music I want, whenever I want, while cooking, etc.
I set up the system while drinking pink sparkling wine and listening to a CD of "Romantic Sax" chrismas classics. The sparkling wine was my "trophy" for winning the championship in the athena division in the SWCS. Instead of tropies, we got customized magnums of sparkling New Mexico wine.This was refreshing because Mini-baboo has been heavily indoctrinated by DARE,.all well and fine for him. The problem is that I get "the look" if I decide to have a glass of wine and it kind of kills the buzz.
Next, I removed the PASSWORD. That's right, the PASSWORD. Then I installed a compact wireless network adapter that plugs into the USB slot. When Mini comes back I may have to put the password back on, but for now, it is gloriously without password OR screen saver, since I just turn off the monitor when I'm not using it.
Next I'll be removing old programs that I won't be using, and have never used. Quicken, money, etc. Then I'll defrag the hard-drive. My next step is to install a TV card into one of the empty PCI slots.
Anyway, it worked splendidly. This morning I watched one of my favorite movies while I ran on the dreadmill - a movie called FREQUENCY, which has my favorite movie scene ever, and if you've seen the movie you'll recognize it: it's the moment when John's dad Frank, the fireman, changes his mind and exits the burning building safely, thereby changing the future.
Also, last night before I went to bed I set a box of Quaker "Breakfast cookies" on the table. Just set them there, out in the open, unprotected, all night. Then, I went to bed. When I got up, they were still there, all of them. Blissssssss.
So what does this mean to you. Hmmmm. Well, I think it means that just the two of us, while you're all stressed over your holiday meal and stuff, we're just hanging out and eating whatever we rustle up from from the local Coop.
Happy Winter Solstice, by the way, although I'm a day late!
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