There are no bad owners, only bad dogs

2004-09-26

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When you're from Texas and you hear a loud popping sound, followed by crackling static and a whiff of ozone, you just assume that you're in Huntsville and it's Friday night. And that someone else who is mentally retarded was just used as a deterrent to crime. But when you're in Oxford and you hear the crackling and smell the burning, you're not sure what's going on. So you look around for smoke and flames, and eventually it dawns on you that the fucking transformer that is powering your laptop is sparking like, well, like ol' Sparky. The laptop that is your only source of sound is now out of commission. It's not like the speakers played fabulous sound, or like you were smart enough to bring CDs with you so you weren't stuck with only one excellent but gonna-get-tired-after-the-twentieth-time-you-hear-it Norah Jones CD. But weekends are fucking long without the blinky box to keep you company, even if the only things that are on are football matches (not games, I'd enjoy those), race cars, and British soaps. See, I was spoda be living in a FURNISHED place that had a blinky box and a talking toaster...

Snap, crackle, pop, no more Norah. Back to silence. I used to think I craved some moments of silence (not in any kind of reverent way), but now I know I hate silence. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Unless the baby upstairs is crying and that's the only thing breaking the silence. Then I think mean thoughts about that baby.



So, in order to not have to lug my heavy old laptop into the office, I write down all of the pertinent info about it -- model number, service number, blah, blah, so's I can come into the office and order a replacement cord that has the right kind of end on it for the ridonculously huge amount of power that comes from each outlet. The vital step that I missed between the writing and the ordering was the putting into my purse of said information. I am such a fucking loser. Loooooo-ser.


So yesterday I went downtown to do some shopping and to keep from being a fucking hermit weirdo and I discovered Oxford's two "malls." They were very American mall-like, except that one had a major grocery store in it. Honey, I'm going to run over to the mall and get some groceries. They had lots of other crappy stores, though, like Claire's Boutique. I remember when the defining factor that made a mall a MALL was a Chess King. If you had a Chess King, then you were a real mall. I haven't seen a Chess King in decades. I think Chess King has been replaced as a definitive mall component by Structure.


One fabulous thing about life here is that the liquor store is open on Sundays until 9 p.m. Tonight I think I will invest in a bottle of vodka. And I really mean "invest," since it will cost me a lot of money. I don't know if my tiny freezer box has enough space to hold it AND the two ice cube trays.


So, anyway, I was going to use some of my copious free time here to learn more (which would mean learning anything at all) about HTML so's I could play around with this Web page, but now my laptop is machina non grata with the British electrical system, so I will have to do the ridiculous task of handwriting html code and then transcribing it onto my work computer after work. Oy.


In Bad Dog news, my absence has given Katy some apparent fits of anxiety (she likes things to be consistent -- inconsistency makes her very nervous) which have led to some fits of chewing. She doesn't like that people keep stuffing things (toys, mattresses, comforters, dog beds) with polyester fiberfill, so she feels the need to remove it whenever she senses its presence. I'm pretty sure that Buster hasn't even noticed that I'm gone.

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