Weird but True

And all happening this past week:

Monday or Tuesday night, my wife was having trouble with my home computer, so I checked it out. When she typed in a URL, it would come in backwards. So www.aol.com would show up as moc.loa.www – and, BTW, it didn’t work. I rebooted – the universal solution to all computer problems – and ended up with no Internet connection at all, so I had to call Time Warner, who do the voodoo they do and fixed it remotely.
***
My work fax is tied to my work e-mail, but I don’t receive very many faxes. Generally, those I do get are junk faxes. But Wednesday morning, I got this letter from the NYS DMV explaining why a woman’s driver’s license was suspended for medical reasons. Below that, I see the woman’s rebuttal as to why the suspension was not medically necessary. Clearly, this fax has been sent to the wrong number – mine – so I looked up her number and left a message explaining what happened. She called me back late that afternoon and thanked me for letting her know that her letter had been waylaid.
***
Ash Wednesday was a cold and rainy-turning-to-icy night. Carol, Lydia and I went to church, then I took Lydia home on the bus, since Carol had a church meeting. We left the light on the front porch. About 8:45 p.m., the doorbell rang. I assumed it was Carol who left her meeting early and didn’t want to fumble with her keys. Instead, it was this woman I did not know, who appeared drunk and/or stoned, who wanted me to call her a cab. Apparently the cell phone in her hand wasn’t working. So I closed the door, got our portable phone, opened the door and started calling taxi companies for her, first from the numbers as she recalled them, then from the Yellow Pages. I let them each ring over 10 times and got no answer – this was six or seven different companies, a couple I called twice. Finally, I got one who said a cab would be there in 45 minutes. The woman on the porch asked, “It’s coming, right?” And I said yes, but I didn’t give her a time frame. I felt sorry for her, since it was cold and wet out, but I was disinclined to let her in since 1) she appeared wrecked, 2) I had my daughter in the house and 3) the woman was smoking a cigarette, with a very long ash that had somehow stayed intact. About 20 minutes later, I looked on the porch, but the woman wasn’t there. Twenty minutes after that, my wife got home; the woman was still gone. Thirty minutes after THAT, or over an hour after I had called the taxi company, I heard beeping in front of our house, which I assumed was the cab; whether the woman ever got on it, I’ll never know.
***
Wednesday night into Thursday, I sneezed in my sleep and bit the left side of my tongue. Boy, that hurt!
***
I was on the bus Tuesday night, Primary Night in New York and elsewhere, heading to the polls. This woman I know only from riding the bus was telling this story – not just to me, but anyone within earshot – about a dream she had had the night before: There was a terrorist attack on Washington in early November 2008. President Bush declared martial law and postponed the elections. It was later discovered that the Bush administration had planned and executed the bombing itself.
The woman telling the story then explains how she woke up screaming and her upstairs neighbor ran downstairs to see if she was all right. He was about to call 911.
***
I won’t even get into talking about my WORK computer, which died – as in as though someone pulled the plug – a week ago Friday thrice, Monday thrice, and Tuesday once, went to another computer, which did the same thing once on Wednesday.
An

ROG

Should They Stay or Should They Go QUESTIONS

As distressed as I’ve sometimes been over things in these United States, I’ve never given any real thought about, say, moving to Canada. But people with whom I’m acquainted have considered it, with some degree of seriousness. Even in the midst of the VietNam War, when I had a very low draft number, it had not occurred to me to think about departing, though many did. So, I find it rather entertaining to note that at least some Vermonters want to secede from the Union.

Meanwhile, to the dismay of some, Democrats in Washington want to keep impeachment off the table. I guess I’m in that group that say 1) and make DICK CHENEY President? Are you kidding?, and 2) any impeachment procedure, no matter how justified – and I think it may be, over the domestic spying and signing documents alone – WILL be seen as partisan politics, retaliation for the (idiotic) Clinton impeachment. But I could be persuaded. Should the President be impeached? Will he be impeached? Are things seeming so bleak that you’d leave the United States, if you live here? (And if you don’t, how are you feeling about your country’s government?) And will you be moving to Vermont any time soon?

On another topic, any of you with AOL accounts find the “moustache” version more difficult to open? It seems better now, but initially it didn’t work at all. Once, it didn’t open in German:
Fehler beim Herunterladen des erwünschten Inhalts.
Beim Herunterladen des erwünschten Inhalts ist ein Fehler aufgetreten. Bitte versuchen Sie es später erneut.
Sollte dieser Hinweis weiter bestehen, sehen Sie bitte in den Hilfeseiten nach. Um mehr über den eMail-Service zu erfahren, besuchen Sie bitte unsere Homepage.

It’s good to know the German words for eMail and Homepage.

Finally, is there even one person out there who feels sorry for that person who actually may have to serve a 45-day sentence, the one who cried out, “Mommy! Don’t they know I’m rich, and above the law?” Well, I don’t, and I have found not a soul, not a soul, who, in the words of Mr. T, pities the fool, though leave it to Gordon to take the high road. (I am operating on yesterday’s info that she’s still in jail.)

ROG

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