mother computer

Of course it would be too much to hope that I would actually write with enough regularity to suggest a trend. August seems to be one of those months where a lot gets done, if not necessarily in any area that would be of any use. I'm getting a lot of work done at Work, in other words, where it will do absolutely no good to anybody that I really care about. In the grand scheme of things, it's likely that one or two e-mails will not make a significant contribution to the well-being of the world. Of course, neither would the act of cleaning a toilet, but it would certainly improve the well-being of yours truly. I'd much rather get the latter done than the former, but even my mother would admit that the former is the path of least resistance. Or maybe not. You never know with my mother.

I'm hoping to get my COO to come by and do the cleaning for me, but that seems unlikely to say the least. Still, hope springs eternal.

We're rapidly approaching our week-long sojourn in Seattle, a trip that is intended to provide celebration and relaxation to all except my husband and me: me because we will be staying with my mother, who despite her quixotic charms still holds the dubious privilege of knowing exactly which of my buttons to press, in what order, and how often. No doubt by the time I leave I'll be breathing heavily through my ears, my nostrils and mouth being fully occupied by the rabid froth of barely restrained rage. It won't be fun and games for the Guy, either, who -- like all able-bodied male visitors to my her house -- will somehow find himself climbing up in the attic to clean out generations of clutter, or cleaning out the gutters, or painting the house, or any of the millions of household chores she seems to accumulate and hoard just for occasions like this.

I might have done him a disservice early on, when he was still trying desperately to ingratiate myself with my mother. Sako pointed out with perfect fairness that I had sabotaged their relationship from the outset, by painting a picture of Mom that so terrified the Guy, he was barely functional when it finally came to making a first impression. In the attempt to make up my sins and help him along in my her eyes, I assured her heartily that he liked helping around the house, that that was just the sort of sweet, compassionate, ready-to-lead-an-old-lady-across-the-street boy scout he was.

It would be unfair to call my mother an opportunist, since I think she honestly believes that storing up all these chores to give the Guy will, in fact, make him happy. He pounded the final nail in his own coffin when he reappeared from tidying her massive back yard, beaming and full of advice on how to manage a large garden.

"I did it this way, because it's smarter," he said, and: "If there's anything that needs to be done, just tell me. I'm here to help." And, fatally: "Oh no, it was no problem. I enjoyed it."

She regarded him thoughtfully. I think I actually heard the house let out its belt buckle, sag a little, sigh with relief, and pop open a beer. Guest privileges were over.

It might be due to this prediliction on her part for keeping him occupied that the Guy has decided to teach her how to use a computer. I will confess freely that it is not a notion that has tickled me pink. My mother and I have had three encounters with computers together, in a teacher/student capacity; none of them ended well, either for me or Mom, while each computer in question seemed to power down with a newly acquired air of disillusionment that bordered on the suicidal.

Honestly would compel me to admit that out of the three of us, it was Mom who walked away the victor. For all her protestations that she is, in fact, willing and eager to plunge into the mysteries of the 21st century, she is maddeningly prone to distractions, pointing out reasonably that it would be far faster to write her letters to Japan with paper, pen, and fax machine. In fact, she was perfectly right. While my training in piano has helped me reach an average typing speed of 140 words per minute, her instrument of choice is the violin, which is training that only assists the most obscure of office talents: disembowling executives, for instance. Her typing style was of the blink, blink, blink, peer, blink, peer, poke, Oops, blink, contemplate-one-hand-clapping school.

It was like being nibbled to death by feral ladybugs.

When she began picking up her mouse to peer into its underbelly, mistaking it for some bulky laser pointer (a concept she is also unfamiliar with) or a poorly constructed face towel, it seemed time to call it quits. It took two hours to explain the concept of the "ON" switch, information that she perversely refused to retain, while developing an inconvenient talent for mimicry and retention when it came to the phrase (my fault) "For FUCK's sake."

To this day I'm baffled why the power switch was such anathema to both her long-term and short-term memory. I am puzzled as to what she thinks she actually does when she flicks the light switch in the kitchen. I suspect that in her mind there is some Rube Goldbergian contraption inside the wall that knocks over a domino, triggers a marble, startles a canary, tips a scale, pulls a string, knocks over a jar, and lets lightning bugs loose into the glass coffin of the light bulb.

It is the Guy's opinion that he will be better suited to introduce Mom to the wonders of the Internet Age. This is not due to his skills as a teacher, which I have repeatedly assured him are minimal; rather, he seems to think that his primary advantage over me lies in the fact that he is not her daughter. I have to concede the justice of this, as I have often remarked myself on the disadvantages to being Mom's offspring. She is a wonderful woman -- everybody tells me so, and what objectivity I possess verifies this -- and I am certain I would adore her absolutely without question, were it not for the fact that she is the four-breasted werewolf who guards the fifth portal of hell.

Maybe I exaggerate. I don't know. At any rate, the Guy is optimistic. He has spent the last few weeks reconstituting an old HP computer given to him by a friend's mother. "I shall install Linux on it," he declared, "and it shall be Good."

Personally, I am a fan of Linux. Nonetheless, my private opinion is that in the handicap race between the Guy and me, Linux pretty much equals being the woman's daughter. It may have been foolhardy of me to try training her in computers, but at least I never made the mistake of trying to explain to her what bash was.