I’m spilling out my heart into a word document on my laptop when it closes shop and the paragraphs I have written are lost.
OK, so I should be saving as I go. And I should have expected something to happen since the laptop was spending more time buffering than time letting me be productive. I’ve got a big to-do list for today. I don’t have time for my laptop to be a prima donna.
I love the freedom my laptop offers.
In the morning, I can fill my coffee mug, grab my laptop, and sit on the front porch. From that early morning vantage point, I can survey the bird feeders, the orchard, and a section of the woods. In addition to all the daily bird visitors, I often have rabbits, deer, and squirrels visiting. In truth, squirrels are always visiting.
I am convinced that squirrels have a time clock, and they take turns being under the bird feeders.
The squirrels and I finally have an understanding of the feeders. Of course, this was after I cut back one side of my poles because the squirrels were jumping from the nearby tree onto the feeders. Then I traded out the 3-foot section of metal pipe for a ground-to-feeder piece of smooth flex duct.
The squirrels had figured out how to launch themselves from the exposed wooden 4 X 4 post, getting high enough to grab onto one of the hanging bird feeders. From there, they would pull themselves up and begin destroying the seed I had put out for the songbirds.
I am looking at none of this today because all I can see is my laptop buffering.
I just want to drive over it with my rototiller. Or pitch it out of a moving car against a brick wall. Or teach it how to swim down at the lake. Being enticed into using the laptop, I doggedly watch the screen buffer. And all I can do is wait. If the circumstances were not so stressful, I would notice the many different birds attracted to the feeders.
Each year from April to Thanksgiving, I set my phone alarm to bring in the feeders at night.
In fact, I named my alarm “bring in the bear feeders.†I have video footage from my front yard camera, showing different bears helping themselves to the birdseed in the middle of the night. Oh, and they tend to smash the feeders to gorge on the seed more quickly in each feeder.
So now I am back in the office, looking occasionally at the bird feeders through the window.
I see the two new pink dogwoods I plan to plant today. That project is top of the list. I also need to think about packing to go out of town Friday night. This leads to looking at the laundry. Then there is the usual recycling and dishwasher that needs to be emptied. Plus, I seeded the slopes around our new garage, and I need to gently water the seed.
Thankfully, none of this calls out or is a trigger for my depression.
Except for my anger at my laptop for wasting my time while it buffers and buffers. Oh, did I mention that my laptop is buffering? I understand that anger is an emotion everyone expresses at separate times. My pent-up anger used to be triggered by what I saw as pokey drivers. This would be a trigger and I would find myself carrying all this anger around after watching people drive, in what I considered a tediously slow or dangerous manner. I have addressed this and once again, this is not a trigger.
But this laptop and its buffering are driving me crazy.
And not Crazy Rich Asian crazy but get this laptop out of my face before I smash it on the porch crazy. I have spent 38 minutes venting on paper about my laptop. I need to stop and get on with my list. Besides what I have written, there is the lawnmower shed to finish organizing, old shingles to dispose of from the lawnmower shed re-shingling, and the steep hill that goes down to the lake which needs mowing.
So, I have plenty to do without spending any more time watching my laptop buffer.
Next week, I will pull the trigger on replacing my laptop. It is 5+ years old, and the technology has raced forward. I have put off the expense for months, telling myself that my slow laptop is no big deal.
Today I am at a breaking point about the laptop, and I realize that it is important, and has been for months.
So that’s enough of that. I am going to get dressed and get the two new dogwoods planted. There will be time to think about the laptop’s buffering later.
