When I was little, I thought the Christmas song said, "Deck the halls with BALLS of holly."

Well, the berries ARE like little balls, you know.

There's been a bug going around

 

When I was little, I'd hear my parents talk during flu season about the bug that was currently going around, and I thought they meant, you know, a BUG. 

Treat it with kid gloves

 

When I was little, when grownups talked about "kid gloves" I thought they meant the gloves kids like me wore to play cowboys. 

Taking things for granite

 

When I was little, when the grownups said "taking things for granted" I thought they were saying "taking things for granite."

Tanka - After This Year's Wildfires

The lightning passes;

Summer fires fall into ash.

Autumn smoke blows far,

Leaving emptiness, loss, tears.

Time now for healing, and rain.

Windows is now that rude clerk at Home Depot

Saturday morning is time to finish up my grocery shopping list.  To ensure the very best prices I need to check with Safeway.com's Just-for-U, which gives me the warm cozy feeling that I am saving money and doing something right for a change. 

So. Pull down the laptop and fire that sucker up. 

Spinning ball bearings.  Spinning ball bearings that occasionally stop and start spinning again. 

What's taking this thing so long?  Let's find out.  Ctrl-Alt-Delete.  No immediate response.  Eventually the little menu comes up and I click on Task Manager.  No immediate response. 

Finally a pale small empty window labeled Task Manager comes up.  Overlaid on it is a message that Task Manager Is Not Responding.  In fact, Windows, NOTHING is responding. 

Yes at last Task Manager does respond, and I close things like HP Support Services and Chrome update and such.  Great.  All settled down.  Now I can browse Safeway.com.

And I think: "If I worked for a company that had Windows as an employee, I would agitate to get Windows fired ASAP."

It is true:  Windows is that rude clerk.  You know the kind.  You go into Home Depot to get the kind of exterior caulk that you can paint over.  Like everything else these days, the labels have all changed from what they looked like when you bought it last year, because New! and IMPROVED! or something. 

So you see a clerk. Two clerks in fact, yucking it up about something.  I walk up to within striking distance and announce that I have a question. 

He turns slightly.  The mouth opens slightly.  The eyelids close slightly.  Then he turns back to his co-worker and finishes what he was saying.  They both laugh.  I get the impression that he had finished with, "See?  This guy? He's just what I was talkin' 'bout. Heh."

Then oh so slowly he three-quarters faces me and puts on a sarcastic version of his work face. 

That's Windows.  Windows is that guy.  Like I'm interrupting Windows' precious time by wanting to actually use my computer for a non-Windows-sanctioned function.

Some day, Windows.  Some day I'm about decided I'm gonna hafta just Linux this thing.  Then you'll be sorry.  But then, given the limitations and learning curve, I know I'm gonna be sorry too. 

But it will be a satisfying kind of sorry. 

The faces of my dead

The book in hand is Traffics and Discoveries by Rudyard Kipling.  The story I have open is "They" in which the narrator has met a blind woman at her country estate, where "they" live -- magical (?) almost hallucinatory (surely not!) almost faerie (?!) children.  The narrator almost asks whether his host had ever had sight. He stops himself, but she understands.  An excerpt:

     "Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old, they told me.  And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream about colours.  I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see them.  I only hear them just as I do when I am awake."

     "It's difficult to see faces in dreams.  Some people can, but most of us haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child stood all but hidden.

     "I've heard that too," she said.  "And they tell me that one never sees a dead person's face in a dream.  Is that true?"

     "I believe it is -- now I come to think of it."

     "But how is it with yourself -- yourself?"  The blind eyes turned towards me.

     "I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered. 

     "Then it must be as bad as being blind." 

Well now!  I know it is methodological madness to mix the author up with the narrator. Nevertheless, here is a conjecture:  Mr. Kipling was someone who could see and remember any number of faces while awake.  Part of his creative gift was that he could emphatically see and pay attention to anyone he met. Yet here he has the narrator saying, "I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream."

How different I must be than Mr. Kipling!  (And yet I love him like a friend I never had, or like one of the friends of mine who have passed beyond the veil of this life.)  Yes, how different he and I are.

In my waking life masquerading as a grown-up, I have a hard time remembering names and faces.  I'm afraid I have to know you quite a while before I can see you.  Sometimes I wonder whether I ever see the faces of those around me.  But in my dreams -- ah, unexpected mercy! -- the faces of my beloved dead are frequent and comforting visitors.