I'm back..did you notice I was gone?

Did you miss me?

Thursday August 11th 2005

SO here I am, with no internet…incredible how cut off from the world that can make me feel when 6 years ago I knew nothing about the internet, was stunned at how clever mobile phones worked ( no wires? No WIRES?!? how in the world does THAT work?!) I certainly couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to own a computer. 6 years on and I have me a husband found via the internet and most of my friends are of the cyber kind. Who’d have thunk it?!
Today has been a pretty good day.
I took Seth to the hospital for his eye appointment , he has a few problems with his left eye, a hemangioma and also we have recently learned that the left eyeball isn’t growing the same as the right one, he has a visibly smaller eye with a slightly drooping lid. His vision in the left is considerably worse than the right and oh my goodness if we don’t find out today that the dreaded and hated patch is back ! ARGH! NO don’t make me do the patch thing! He HATES the patch, screams about the patch, pulls the patch off as soon as our backs are turned, it is the enemy in our house but if we don’t patch him he will lose the sight in that eye eventually. So ( shhh don’t tell Seth) we have some ointment, mean old stuff that will dilate his pupil and do the same job as a patch, he won’t be able to use his good eye and will be so mad at not being able to see very much at all, until the left eye begins to work and learns how to focus we will have to put the tiniest bit of ointment in every other day, but not until he goes back to school. Until then we have a rather nifty patch that slides OVER his glasses, he loves it ( well maybe that is going too far but he doesn’t hate it and only took his glasses off 207 times in between the time he got the patch and bedtime)
If you could hear what goes on in this house you would either laugh or send me valium by the case load ..
“Seth! Put your glasses ON…Eli get down! Yes Isaac your football shirt is clean, get DOWN Elijah! Seth, if I see those glasses on the floor again you’ll be in trouble…where is Eli ? QUICK he’s out again…Isaac I have TOLD you your football shirt is clean and yes those jeans look very good ( again , just like they did yesterday and the 6 weeks before) and you have your shoes on the wrong feet…yes you have…..you HAVE….never mind, they’ve probably stretched themselves into shape anyway as you never put them on the right feet.. ELIJAH! did you go out of that gate again? PUT THOSE GLASSES ON!
Howard and I are rendered dumb when they go to bed, if I try and make an effort to spark up a conversation with him he gets a look on his face akin to a deer in a headlight. If I had the energy I might mind that wherever I go, people tell me that they love my voice, they ask me to talk, tell me that they could listen to me for hours and never tire of hearing me, but my husband is overdosed by my voice, he loses the will to live if I say
“ H , can we talk? ” I am forced to back track and pat him gently on the shoulder and tell him I didn’t mean it, he can stare ahead ( we have that 1000 yard stare that is the only antidote to lots of young, loud children, fix your eyes on something completely unimportant and make it your focus, love that thing and switch out that noise people…you can do it!!) he can numb his brain until 5am in the morning when the little people will be up and we start all over again. I will join him in the mindless yet glorious silence and tell him telepathically that he is loved and understood and appreciated and if he can manage it, could he please stroke my back very gently and for a long time? Thankyou.
I will be internetless for 2 more days , I shall use the time to reminisce of the days when I knew not what joys the computer held for me and remind myself that before e.mail my phone bills were colossal.
Hooray for Microsoft word, that will allow me my daily fix of writing my blog, I hope that when I post it all at once you won’t all slip into the 1000 yard stare and go to your own quiet place. ( ha… would you listen to me, talking as if I have a following of thousands…I can but dream!!)

Saturday 13th August

So…we’re all paid up and waiting, with drumming fingers, for the reconnection to the outside world. It’s a bit worrying, actually, how deprived we have felt, I am sure that all of us have tried at some stage to get connected at least once, just to see if mean old Tele-west meant it when they said they were inflicting the worst kind of torture on us and disconnecting out internet. Of course there’s no way they can possibly just flick that switch and get us back on, oh no, up to 48 hours they say.. “SHOW ME THE WWW” I say!!! Oh and cable TV please, 5 channels used to be enough but that was in the days before insomnia and computers…I am spoiled now and would like to have the endless choice of viewing at a click of my finger via the remote. 24 hours a day thankyou.
What is my world coming to? Only this afternoon I was numbing my mind with some drivel that already is so far from my mind I can’t even drag it back to name it for your benefit and it was LOUD- SO LOUD! ARGH! The remote doesn’t work ( is it possible for the cable people to do that? Am I paranoid in thinking they have even managed to creep into my home and suck the life out of my TV remote so that I can’t even change the volume of the 5 channels we DO have left? right now, at 7.39pm on Saturday evening I can hear Brainiacs, ‘the worst jobs in history’, now, whilst that is like manna from heaven for Seth and H. it is like Chinese torture to me. ) anyway, I could feel my neck break out in a clammy cold sweat “ oh no…it’s too loud, I hate too loud, the remote won’t work, ack…help me, what can I do…WORK YOU DAMN THING YOU ..turn the noise down oh pleeeeease………It took a full 5 minutes for me to remember that it is possible to actually move my fat arse and turn the thing down myself!! I felt almost insulted at having to roll of the couch and crawl on my knees across dinosaur strewn flooring to reach the TV.
I do want to stress at this point ( having painted such a picture of slatternly idleness ) that I had already been up for 10 hours, had taken my family out for a nice morning trip, organised dinner and was sitting out the time the boys can just turn the house into a small branch of toys r us and let their imaginations run riot. We had power rangers vs batman today, the dinosaurs were the enemy of both as far as I could gather. Somehow, I managed to avoid the 3rd re-run of Shrek for the day ( or frek as Eli pronounces it) hence the nameless drivel at full volume, I shall plump for Shrek next time, better the devil you know I always say.
So, a Saturday night to kill, with no internet or T.V. worth a squint. What to do? Passion would be a pretty cool way to pass the time, shame I’m so tired, if only they had a remote for that!!