Blog-O-Whirl

Oh NOOOOOO!!!!! I wailed as the clock spoke of the 2am hour. "I can't do this!!! It's too much to bear! Oh woe ... " [Note: No, I am not a woman in labor ... well, not with a child, that is.]

Whaaaaa …. Whaaaaat …” mumbled my incoherent husband sprawled across the bed fully dressed, having dozed off while waiting for me to do just a “couple of little things” on the computer before we went downstairs for some snacks and quiet conversation a-l-o-n-e. But alas, I had been captured by The Dragons That Be on the edges of civilization (which for me would be anywhere beyond the standard expressway of Blogdom). You see, unbeknownst to my sweet husband, while he dozed contentedly, I had exited the main e-road, flew through the off-ramp maze, barreled down some side streets, and exited the city limits altogether. At that particular moment I was bouncing along a rutted dirt road in the middle of an e-swamp and the sound of e-gators snapping their jaws had completely undone me. “How had this happened to a nice girl like Debbie?” you may be asking yourself. [For those of you that know me and have a snarky response at the ready … JUST HUSH!]

Well, it all began innocently enough with a visit to a gorgeous website that offered a link promising “free tools” to manage my website. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the demands of this little bloggy-thing that I had birthed, which now required constant attention and feeding, I decided I could use all the “tools” I could get and FREE sounded fine with me. So I clicked and selected and gave away my passwords and received the most ridiculous blob of gibberish that I was then instructed to upload into my HTML. Who can function in a world without vowels?!?!?!?! I’m so undone by the language of the computer, and let’s not even get into all the steps required to take a simple pic of a beautiful rose – snap! Got that one down. : ) -- and then download, upload, crop, shop, and don’t even mention the “SAVE” issue … OKAY! I CONFESS! I AM A SPENDER NOT A SAVER!!!!

[“Attention shoppers … will the woman raving on blogspot aisle 2,947,903,792 please lower her tone (a.k.a., “Release the caps lock immediately!”) and proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest exit for a cup of tea and some endorphins.” Thank you – The Management]

Ahem … where was I … Oh yes, I had just attempted to upload or download or paste or something or other that brought on the familiar symptoms of motion sickness and the threat of hives, when *PHFFFFFFT* all went flat and quiet and I just sat there staring like a fool wondering what I had or hadn’t done. Well, I decided to be proactive and just get out of this mess, BUT … the little “terms and conditions” threatened me with some nasty ads if I didn’t do this right. Yikes! Am I in violation? Quick thinking me went to google and googled these folks to see if anyone out there had some suggestions that might help. Yep, they did. “STAY AWAY!” they shouted. “BEWARE!” quoth another. “Bad stuff coming” warned a third. And that’s when the moaning and wailing began.

So, here comes the really good part where the Knight in Shining Armor (oh, wait, do faded khaki shorts and a black shirt sporting a red polo insignia qualify as armor or even matching clothes, for that matter?) LEAPED out of bed, jump astride his trusty mouse, and sped to the far horizons of the cyber world and slayed every dragon, changed every password, and even uploaded the odd pic I had failed to secure properly.

“Thank you,” I murmured demurely through lowered lashes. He replied strongly, “I have, once again, snatched you from the jaws of a hungry dragon.” He added, in the deep monotone of a knight weary from battle yet stable of mind, “Now get thee to a nunnery and let me go back to sleep in peace at this 4th hour past midnight.” [Okay, he didn’t e-x-a-c-t-l-y say it with those words, but that’s how I received it in my sodden state.] “Oh, one last thing,” he mentioned as he crested the horizon wrapped in a summer-weight quilt, “NEVER, NEVER download ANYTHING without having me look at it first.” “Roger,” I smiled and waved, as I closed the offending portal to the unknown world and went to brush my teeth.

“Where’s the Happily Ever After?” you may ask. It’s there. You see, I awoke the next morn after a mere sprinkling of sleep and made my way out into the gardens, my glorious refuge and sanctuary … a nunnery in many ways. As I snipped and sniffed, dug and trugged, I felt life returning to my weary parts. The semi-permanent connection to this utterly foreign and voracious box had sapped me of the very life that drew me to this page. And so I promised myself I would play in the garden until I felt like smiling and getting back onto the blog-o-whirl for amusement, rather than punishment. I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaack! [and I’m all smiles.] : )