I Blame Mercury

The last few weeks, it seems like little things keep creeping up on me. Today, I feel like I’m hitting that point of no return, where the shit is about to hit the fan.

Background: Last week, I had to deal with 3 messed-up computers. The neighbor had some viruses on hers, and I had to reset hers to factory to restore it completely. My mother’s started acting wonky, and ended up functioning but without the “click” feature of the touchpad working. And mine…hosed itself. (Beware the AntiMalware Doctor!) I got everybody else’s computer fixed but mine, and re-upped the defenses on all the other computers in our home network.

Sunday, Jarod was supposed to go to a birthday party, but the mom called to reschedule at the last minute, due to resident pukers. (NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!)

Tuesday morning, the internet connection started going down. It took me almost an hour to get it back online, but since it’s happened before (usually when the power goes out), I figured it would be okay.

Last night, I tried to install Ubuntu on my old computer, since the Windows OS was obviously trashed. It wouldn’t work; the installer would either halt, mess up the screen, or auto-reboot. At the same time, the Internet started going out again. I was trying to work on that and my computer at the same time (so I could access Ubuntu tech files), but I could only keep the Internet up for a few minutes at a time. I gave up after a bit. Later on, Brian’s computer started blue-screening and the mouse would stop working.

So I started this morning with a downed Internet, a downed computer that Brian needed for an on-call shift this weekend, a house with barely any food because I was putting off shopping, and TWO birthday parties on the schedule, one at the park in 46-degree weather. Oh yeah, and Brian needed a ride home from work picnic party. I was planning to bring some homemade bread and cheese to the , so I started in on the bread as soon as I got up, trying out a new recipe, bouncing between upstairs computers (tethered to my phone for internet access to look things up) and downstairs computers (intermittently failing and needing Windows updates installed) and occasionally chores. (I haven’t gotten much schoolwork graded/taught the last couple of weeks.)

The bread must be a good recipe. The kids demolished both loaves within 15 minutes of my cutting them. So much for party food.

Brenden decided after lunch that he didn’t want to go to the park party. I didn’t blame him; I didn’t really want him outside in the chill for several hours. Once he decided he was staying home, Liam decided he was staying with him. So I ended up dropping off the girls at the party, turning one trip into town into at least two (did you know it costs me over a hundred dollars to fill up my gas tank now?). On the way to the party, Caitlin informed me that she’d been seeing a bunch of strange, new floaters in her left eye since that morning.

I did get by Sams with the younger boys, and then picked Brian up on the way home. While I was in transit, my brother checked out my computer and declared my hard drive a total loss. Great. No sooner did I get home than I to turn around to go back and pick up the girls. On the way home, Caitlin tells me her eye is getting worse, and now it looks like when her glasses are fogged up. I left her with Brian to figure it out, grabbed Jarod, and turned around to take him to his friend’s birthday party (no longer puking, thank gods).

Reagan’s party was cute. Jarod was the only kid there (I wonder if all the others were scared off by the puking?), so he and Reagan were glued to each other’s side the whole time. Listening to them talk was so much fun, me and Reagan’s aunts and cousins were just cracking up most of the time. Jarod was good, although he did try to open Reagan’s presents for her. By the time they were ready for the pinata, it was just me and Jarod, and Reagan and her brother and parents. I saw the pinata…and flashed back to Birthday Blowout 2005, the Year of the Unbreakable Pinata. That year, even Brian and my dad whaling on our pinata with a metal baseball bat couldn’t open the darn thing. We practically had to rip it apart by hand. I had no idea there was such a thing as a pull-string pinata until then…and I could see that Reagan’s dad had never heard of them, either.

I’m nice. I let him in on the “anti-violence pinata” secret. I’m not sure he believed me at first, but he did have Joline go get a metal baseball bat. They let Reagan have a couple whacks at it, and you could hear it go “clink” when she hit it squarely. Not good. So Reagan walked up and yanked on the strings herself to get it over with. Smart girl!

Not like me. I am not a smart girl. I tried to be nice, pulling Ethel off to park beside the driveway so all the other people there could still get out. Turns out, though, I apparently parked Ethel in the local swamp, and she couldn’t get out. Poor Mark had to chain his truck to Ethel’s tow-hitch and pull her out! (Joline told me to tell Brian I went mudding instead of going to the party.)

When I got home, I found out that Caitlin’s eye had gotten even worse just in the couple of hours I’d been gone. She couldn’t read with that eye or see anything very clearly, although she swore she couldn’t see anything like curtains. So now, at 9:15pm, I sit waiting for Dr. Trese’s office to call us back and tell us when she needs to be seen by who, my “work” computer is even deader than I thought, Brian’s work computer is questionable, and we still can’t get to the internet (my laptop is still tethered). Oh yeah, and we’ll probably start puking in a few days (although I will hold out hope that we missed it).

I blame Mercury.

On the positive side, I did run for 20 minutes straight yesterday. And Kender is started to talk more. Got to find the balance somewhere.

Published by solinox

I am a Wiccan priestess, a libertarian mother of triplets plus three, a wife and homeschooling mom to blind and autistic children, a fiber artist, and a Jane of All Trades, always learning and seeking to help.

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