It's been a frustrating morning. I'm happy to say that I've been more inclined to laugh than anything, though, and I feel really good about that, because there was a time when little things could upset me way too much. I'm a bigger person now, I guess. I hope.
The front gate wouldn't open. It was comical, to think we were trapped on our property and might not get Kaela to school on time in this, her first whole week of "real" school. Because she's been homeschooled since kindergarten, she's been in high anxiety since the first day of eighth grade last Thursday. Then, this morning, in a rare moment of almost relaxation, having two full days of school under her belt, she said we should wait until 8:05 to leave the house, instead of leaving at 8 sharp; she didn't want to get to school too early and have to stand around waiting. Then, voila, the gate refused to open. There we sat, poised at the edge of our property, separated from the road by mere inches, and the remote wasn't functioning. We were going to wish we had those five minutes back, as I had no idea how to get it opened mechanically, and was afraid I might break it if I tried to do so. I carefully backed my little Prius up a portion of our curving, narrow driveway to a spot where the sides were not so steep and I could actually turn the car around without taking a nosedive into the rock-hard clay with the fragile front end. I drove back to the house and went inside to try the master gate opener, and nothin' doin'. It didn't budge. I was out of ideas, so I called Dan, who walked me through the process of opening the gate mechanically: find the correct set of keys in a certain dresser drawer, unlock and remove the padlock from the pin on the gate arm, remove the pin, disable the actuator (arm), pull the gate open. Once I could drive out, I then had to get out of the car to close the gate again before I could get back in the car and continue (finally) on our way.
By this time it was 8:16. Kaela was texting her friend, Kara, fingers moving with lightning speed, working herself into a perfect frenzy.
"She says they start at 8:25! I'm going to get a tardy slip!" she fretted.
"No, they start at 8:30, you'll be fine, we'll be there by 8:25," I said, trying to use my best soothing voice. Then I lapsed from better judgement and mused aloud, "It might be a good idea to leave by 8 or earlier in the morning, just to avoid such unexpected delays. I mean, we could hit construction, or an accident . . ."
This observation set off a new texting frenzy.
"Oh, we'll be fine," I repeated, mentally kicking myself. "Try to drink some of your smoothie."
Smoothies are one of Kaela's favorite foods, but lately she'd been nauseous and having difficulty eating, probably from stress. She took a tiny sip now, just to shut me up. She hadn't eaten breakfast. I kept urging her to drink more, all the way to school. We pulled up at exactly 8:25, and the kids were just lining up as I approached the loading curb.
"Wait until I stop the car," I cautioned, since Kaela had unbuckled as soon as we entered the drive, had her backpack already on and was poised to leap, hand on the doorknob. The smoothie was only half gone.
With a sigh of relief I headed back home. I was happy to have the smoothie, although I would have preferred she have some food in her stomach, because it meant that I could get right to work when I got home. I've vowed to write every day while Kaela's in school, and I'm excited about doing it. I didn't get started last week, on her first two days (Thursday and Friday), because Megan was still home from college then and we had things to do, small things, but important because I treasure time with her especially now that she's moved away and making a life of her own. But today I was returning to a quiet house, except for the dogs, and they're easy to ignore. They're just doing their job when they bark, warning off intruders (be they coyotes or hummingbirds), and they require nothing from me in doing it.
I'd given some thought to where I would write, and I like it here in my dining room. It's the center of the house, and there are huge windows all around me and plenty of light. Look to my right, there's my butterfly garden, the road and the (non-functioning) gate. Look to my left, there's the back yard and beyond, the arena and horse stalls. There are plenty of chores waiting there, but they can do just that: wait. And there is no one and nothing here to dictate otherwise, a glorious feeling.
So I begin to write, and a small glitch occurs. Look back at that second paragraph--the rather long one. See the French word "voila"--only it doesn't look right, because it isn't. There should be a small accent mark above the "a". On most keyboards, you have the option to use your number keypad and alt key together to make properly accented letters for languages that use them. Some keyboards have two sets of numbers, one of which is a permanent number keypad, and other keyboards have a "numlok" key that will allow you to turn numbers into a number keypad, to use as a calculator in most cases, and also for this special foreign language accent feature.
My notebook, it turns out, has neither option. This is serious for me, because I use French and Spanish quite a bit. It took me awhile to find out this limitation; at first, I just wasn't willing to accept it, and I kept trying to find a way to access a number keypad feature. I first tried different function key combinations, and when nothing worked I decided I should consult the manual. I searched the house, and no manual. This is sometimes the case with electronics lately; I believe they expect you to access more and more information on the web. So I went to the internet, and, sure enough, there was the manual for HP notebooks, in pdf, all 130 pages. I searched, but nothing shed light on my particular needs. I then did a general web search on accessing accent mark features on notebooks, all to no avail.
I was finally at my last resort, calling tech support. I spent the next 1/2 hour with a really, really nice young man who did his best to a) understand what it was exactly I wanted to do, and b) figure out how to get my particular notebook to do it. We even went so far as to explore the very setup of my machine, went deep into its inner workings and programming, where we could ask it to change everything to French or Spanish, but nowhere did we discover the ability to simply insert an accented foreign word or letter here or there, as I so often need to do. Then he informed me that what I evidently need is a separate USB numeric pad, but not one with only 10 or 11 keys, make sure to get the one with 19 keys! And they sell it at Best Buy for only $22. Thank you, Very Nice Anonymous Tech Support Guy, you made my day.
And so frustration becomes learning and on I go. Or, as one horse trainer I know likes to put it, "You gotta ride the ride." But I have writing projects waiting, and that's a whole 'nother blog.
