“Mom?”
I stopped putting on my shoe. “What Jeremy?”
“While we’re on our walk, could we stop and pick up a computer? It’s only $15. And it’s right here!” They pointed at a circle outline which encompassed a 5 block radius. It was near where we were walking but still a decent hike to even the nearest part of the circle.
I mentally groaned. If they picked up a computer, there was no way we were going to continue on our walk on a gorgeous wooded trail, something I’d been looking forward to all day. And we knew nothing about the computer. I explained that to them. They immediately texted the person who almost immediately texted back. It was right near where we were walking and he was willing to meet us in an hour. The excitement on Jeremy’s face made me agree.
They babbled all the way to the bus and the whole half hour long bus ride then for the whole twenty minute walk too. We got to the man’s apartment and Jeremy’s jaw dropped. It turned out the man’s job was finding deals on lots of computer parts, fixing them up, and selling them on kijiji. Jeremy was in computer heaven.
“This is the $15 computer,” the man said, “and this is the $25 computer.”
It was my jaw dropping turn. I’d picked out a tiny $150 netbook when Jeremy offered to buy me one (the cheapest computer at the store) but it was very slow… like can’t manage Facebook slow. I needed a new computer… especially a $25 one. It was the beginning of the month so we bought both.
Then came Jeremy’s time to shine. They checked my computer, decided the hard drive was way too small and swapped it for the one in the netbook.
“Don’t worry Mom, it’s not the hard drive that makes it go fast, it’s the CPU and the RAM.”
Then Windows had problems so they tried me with Linux and Ubuntu. I couldn’t use my programs on either so they sorted out Windows and got that reinstalled. Through that whole time of uninstalling and installing, Jeremy kept all my photos, novels, and scrapbooking graphics safe. And now I have a computer that will actually load Facebook.
On Sunday we went down to the lake to watch the full moon rise over the water (and take pictures). Unfortunately it rose over the tiny bit of land to the east but I got a few good shots of the moon rising over rock piles at the shoreline while Jeremy got an amazing short video of the waves rolling in.
A bit blurry but still cool
Jeremy’s waves video…
We were almost home when I heard the friendly “mow” of a cat greeting us. I immediately replied back as Jeremy said, “Mom! There’s a cat!”
I looked over to see a beautiful grey and white long haired cat walking through the brush beside the path all the way to the fence. It squeezed through and stayed for a moment, long enough for us to note the lack of a collar, then it ran back as a dog drew near.
“Mom, we need to take her home,” Jeremy pleaded. “She doesn’t have a home and she’s going to freeze to death soon.”
I looked at the tiny area of brush and the townhouse complex behind it. “Hon, she has to have a home. She’s got long fur, she’d be covered in burrs if she was abandoned.”
Just then a man and his four little dogs stopped by and looked at the cat behind the fence. “Such a pretty cat,” he mused. “Too bad someone dumped her. She’s been here begging for a few days now. The cat lady had food set up over there…”
He gestured down the path to a section with trees between two buildings. “… but someone keeps setting his dog on them and knocking down their shelter.”
“Fine,” I said to Jeremy. “Let’s take her home.”
We coaxed her out and Jeremy carried her the rest of the block while I debated naming her Mariposa and finally settled on Luna because we’d found her under the full moon.
Once we got her inside, we realized how filthy she was. Brushing turned her into a mixture of tabby and white and she was laid back enough to let me pull burrs off her belly. Even the embedded ones. And she was gorgeous!
The next morning I got up and started calling. The vet clinic, the humane society, animal control, a local animal rescue. Then we hauled her over to the clinic and… beep… they found a microchip. She turned out to be Tarzan, a 1 1/2 year old male (I also stink at sexing cats). Tarzan had been rehomed nearby because of his extreme laid back behaviour. Behaviour which allowed their puppy to shake him by the neck. He’d jumped off his new owner’s 6th floor balcony and, of course, couldn’t get back home after that. His original owners live an hour away and came that day to pick him up… despite us being in the middle of a power failure that engulfed half our city. We’re talking traffic jams for miles. But he’s safe now and back home. Smudge looked for him for a day.
And I have another frog. This one is an albino African clawed frog. He’s quiet during the day but I can watch him swimming while I drift off to sleep at night. He had a sibling who escaped this morning and was found by the kittens. He was alive when I found him but died about an hour later from his injuries. My remaining frog is named Lucky. He’s not nearly as adventurous but will hopefully outlive all my other frogs. Plus I have a filter now, which will help Lucky’s breathing and my sleep.
I still stink at endings so here’s Lucky (in the back) and Not So Lucky making jazz hands in the front.
Because I'm Fabulous 