Infuriating

Yes, Dear Readers, I am planning to post pictures of my newly colorful rooms. My intention was not to leave you hanging. In fact, I was planning to post them the day after my previous post. Now, nearly a week later, I'm still fussing with the Technological Beast.

I took the giant memory card over to my mother-in-law's. Her computer is always up to date and seamlessly functioning. It couldn't read my card either. In fact, suddenly it couldn't read her own memory card.

Strike one.

Then I had Michael spend some time at our computer to see if he could figure it out. He is better at such things than I. He spent an hour and a half tirelessly attacking the computer's brain with vacuum and canned air. He went through the memory and deleted and reloaded. He called his tech-y brother and picked his brain...

Strike two.

Today I went to the supermarket which has a photo kiosk and transferred all the photos from the memory card to a cd, thereby emptying the faulty card. The day was already not going as planned. My Sophia had one of her migraines and I kept her at home. My son forgot his laptop, which he needed for school, and I got in the van to drop it off for him. (I certainly had the discussion in my head about how he might learn to be more responsible if he spent a day without it, but helpfulness won out today. Never fear; I am inconsistent - he can learn that lesson later.) Since I was on that end of town, I decided to swing by the store to get this photo situation resolved. Maybe I would even have time to stop in at my husband's office and load them on a new blog post for the three of you clamoring to see. I can switch back to my card with the tiny memory after this and all should be well.

After doing the transfer at the kiosk, I scanned my bar code to begin the cd burning and to tell me how long until pick up. I should be out of here and back with my girl in five minutes, I thought. Instead, the message screen told me my order would be ready in 13 minutes. Ouch. This is turning into a long time away from my unwell child. I told the photo assistant that I wasn't sure I could stay this long.

"Well," she said archly, "I can TRY to keep an eye on it and grab it when it spits the cd out, but I can't make any guarantees."

I knew the right thing was to leave and get back to Sophie, but I lingered long enough to make the decision that my nephew's terrific wife, Mandi, came down the aisle and struck up a conversation. It was great to chat with her and the topic of our conversation was one I'd like to visit here - Foreign Exchange Students. I'm sure we talked for five minutes at least. I thought I'd check the ETA of the cd one more time. Maybe more time had elapsed than I thought.

"Your order should be ready in TWELVE minutes." !!! As far as the kiosk was concerned, one minute had passed since I placed my order. I told the disapproving attendant that I couldn't stay. I hope it'll be there when I can get back but for now...

Strike three.

But still swinging. Stay tuned.