The Hey You Lady

I cancelled my internet service at home a while back. Since then, I’ve either been using the computer at family members’ homes, or more often than not, taking my laptop someplace where I can tap into a Wi-Fi hotspot. A few weeks ago I discovered that I could tap into an unsecured Wi-Fi connection right here at my kitchen table! That is, when the connection is available. And the availability of the signal is often hit-and-miss, with more “miss” than “hit” in the evening hours when I want to be on line. It seems as soon as the connection is established and I open a web page, the connection is gone. This can be a problem, especially when reading and sending e-mails. If the connection fails, I cannot send replies, or even go to the next email in my inbox. I end up spending more time checking to see if I have a “live” connection, more than I spend actually online. An analogy might be that I’m spending more time asking “Are we there yet?” more than I’m spending time actually in the car. As m...

One of the oil islands off of Long Beach. Not Hawaii. Children amaze me. They believe in nearly anything, as long as the person telling them is someone that they trust. I remember before I entered kindergarten I honestly believed that Santa Claus squeezed through the mail slot on Christmas Eve to deliver gifts (we didn't have a chimney), that it was a good idea (at the time) to write my name in purple crayon on the wall in the hallway, that the oil islands off of Long Beach were really Hawaii, and that my daddy could fix anything. With these beliefs came grand expectations: I could peek out the mail slot in search of Santa; mom would treasure my artwork; the world was smaller than it really is; and daddy could make all things good as new again. I believed in all these things because I had complete faith and trust in the people who loved me, an unwavering faith that they would never do anything to harm me. The faith of a child. But then I grew older. I made discoveries ab...