Easter Eggs, Herbs And OMG I Failed!

What a day!  Internet was out for most of it and we had to get the cable guy out here.  He ended up running totally new cable because the old cable was all beat up (he said).  I felt sorry for him having to crawl through the scary place under the house to run the cable.  Lots of creepy crawlies down there.  Now the internet is much faster and WORKING!

While I was having withdrawals from not being able to get online,  I dyed Easter eggs and The Murph and I went to the store and bought some vegetables and herbs to plant in the garden.  I couldn't get The Murph to dye any eggs though.  He's too manly for that kind of girly stuff.

Here's some of the herbs we bought... (they are all legal)

I snuck some catnip in for the cats along with the other herbs.  The Murph doesn't spoil his cats like I spoil mine so he wouldn't have approved of the catnip if he had noticed.  I can spoil his cats along with mine though.  Catnip should not be legal from the way my cats act around it.

I was skyping with The Boy last night and he asked me if I would help him find some sources for a paper he had to write.  I try to discourage this and make him find his own sources, but if he can convince me how terribly busy he is and he's working on another paper, studying for a test, etc, then I will help him a little.  I told him that I might if I had time, but I was in the middle of something so don't depend on it.

Well, I was busy and totally forgot to find any sources for him so just now as I am sending him a message that our internet is back up and running he skypes me with this very dramatic, over the top message that goes something like this...


The Boy:  "WHY HAVENT YOU GIVEN ME ANY SOURCES

                 YOU FAILED

                 YOU

                 FAILED!!!!!!

                 OMG
                 WHY DIDNT YOU DO IT

                 DID YOU EVEN LOOK

                 I DONT EVEN THINK YOU LOOKED

                 OMFG

                 WHY??????????"

I know this is a bad thing for him to say to me (extremely disrespectful), but I cracked up.  I don't know why I thought it was so funny.  The Murph did NOT think it was funny at all.  

I skyped back to him...

Me:   "No,  I'm not a failure.  I graduated from college 25 years ago." 

I didn't even get a chance to say anything else about it or give him another lecture on being a responsible adult now that he's 19 years old because the drama king had already gotten over it.  Before I could say anything, he was trying to test his server (which is with us 250 miles away from him in his bedroom)  to see if our new internet connection was any stronger than the old one.  

He says it's not.

I should send him some eggs.

The Case Of The Missing Flash Drive

A couple of weeks after The Boy started second semester, he asked me to bring him a few things he had forgotten at the house.   They were things that were for his computer, one was a flash drive, some miscellaneous stuff and an obscure computer thing that I can't even remember what it was called, but I do remember that it took me forever to find it.   I didn't know exactly what I was looking for so he described this obscure thing to me.  I found a few things that I thought might be it and sent him pictures of them on skype.   I think I must have sent him a dozen pictures of different hardware looking computer items.  I had no idea what they were.  I managed to find everything but the flash drive.  Now I know what a flash drive looks like so that wasn't the problem.  I've even used flash drives before many times.  The Boy sent me a picture of exactly what the flash drive looked like anyway,  just in case I didn't know.

The Boy told me the flash drive should be on the night table table next to his bed.  I looked and it wasn't there.  I looked around his bed, under his bed, even a little in the bed itself, but didn't find it.  I also thought The Boy might be confused as to where he used it last so I looked on his desk and around other areas of his room.  I did find a flash drive, but it wasn't the one he wanted.  The flash drive was just missing in action.   I finally gave up looking for it and had forgotten all about it until today.

The Boy is coming home over spring break next week so I decided it's time to start cleaning down in his room.  I have avoided the area since January so it was about time.   I washed his sheets and pillow cases and as I was pulling them out of the dryer today guess what I found in the bottom of the dryer?  You got it...  the MIA flash drive.  I guess it somehow jumped off The Boy's night table and into his bed and has been hiding in the sheets for the last couple of months.  It's now all clean and dry.  I skyped The Boy and broke the news to him.  The good news is he has clean sheets when he gets home, the bad news is his flash drive had a bath.  I'm not really sure exactly what he had saved on there (even if he told me I probably wouldn't understand) and I asked him if he thought it would still work.  So far, he hasn't responded except for a "grrrrrrrrrr" and a :o (surprise face).

Boy Genius

Whenever I come across anything on computers, technology or asperger's that I think The Boy might be interested in reading, I will email or skype him the link to the article, blog, whatever it happens to be.  This morning I was reading and came across a blog that had a link to an article on the "9 Ways Geeks Have Inherited The Earth".  I thought it was a cool and accurate article on the ways technology has impacted every one's lives and most of this technology has been invented by "Geeks".

 The article stated that "Geeks are behind the wealthiest companies in the world." I am keeping my fingers crossed that one day the Boy will be behind one of those companies.  Geeks rule!  I wish I were a Geek, but I still screw up my html code whenever I try to copy and paste pictures on my blog.  I made a D in the only computer class I ever took in college.  (One class was plenty to let me know that wasn't my field).  I don't even know how to get my printer to work when I try to print wirelessly from my lap top.  I thought The Boy would love the article, but instead I get something that went like this:

Me: (sending the link to the boy along with this note)  Interesting article I thought you would like to read

A few minutes later The Boy skypes this back to me......

The Boy: A bunch of bull crap

Me: So Geeks don't rule??

The Boy: They missed a lot of major details

The Boy: and they used a lot of words incorrectly

The Boy: It sounded like someone in high school wrote it...

Me: It came from a blog

The Boy: hmm...

 The Boy: They will let anyone write anything these days...

The Boy: Whatever happened to having to get your papers published before people can read it...

The Boy: it got rid of all the idiots out there

Me: It's a freedom of speech country (and writing)

The Boy: Just because they say it doesn't mean anyone should listen

Me: What did u say.....      

Sometimes saying less is best with The Boy.  From now on if he gets all smarty pants with me or says stuff I don't like, I'm just going to pretend I don't hear him.  After all, he's given me permission now not to listen.  I don't have too!   I think all those good grades in writing are going to his head.  We've always known he was a computer genius, but now a great writer too.  Before long he really is going to be a "know it all".  We're getting our money's worth at that college.   Who can stand it??

Mike's Margarita... Just What I Need!

This is just what I need tonight after spending most of last night skyping with The Boy and helping him write a paper for one class and then this morning helping him again on another paper for a different class.  Thank god for skype and copy and paste!

And, of course, Mikes Margaritas!

This One's For The Boy....

I was on the computer earlier today talking to the boy on skype.  He finally convinced me to use it and after several attempts I figured it out.  Well I didn't really figure it out. The boy (I can't use his real name) walked me through how to set it up.  It wasn't pretty, but I did it.

The boy sent me this picture and told me if I put it on my blog then he would start reading it once in a while.  Actually, this wasn't the first picture he sent.  I vetoed the other pics until he came up with this "clean" one which I thought was ok.  I asked him what that thing was attached to the animal's finger and the boy said it was a glow stick.  I hope that's what it really is and it's not something well....   something else.   

I don't understand what happened.  Maybe I shouldn't have gotten the cats when the boy was little.  It was just the two of us and I thought since he didn't have any siblings it would be nice for him.  Most families adopt pets and then treat them like their kids.  I treated my cats like they were my babies and still do.  The cats think they are human.  My boy on the other hand, thinks he's a cat!  He spent most of the summer following me around the house with the other cats, meowing at me.

I took the boy out to eat with a good friend of mine a few months ago.  He started his meowing after we sat down at the table and then started rubbing his head against my arm acting like a cat.  She just stared at him surprised, but not that surprised.  She "babysat" for him while I did Ironman Canada last summer so she knows him pretty well.  He wasn't getting the reaction he wanted from her so he reached over and bit my shoulder.......in the restaurant.  (and did I mention he's 19!)

I never can tell about that boy.  The therapist said he's perfectly normal.  I told the Murph what the therapist said and the Murph thinks we should get a second opinion.....

The boy's probably laughing because he pulled one over on his mom again!

MEOW!!