And while the summer lightning storm also knocked out the cable TV, it was the losing the Internet that got me most upset. After all, I can live without TV, and I have easily proven that many times before.
But losing my connection to the rest of the world ~ well that's a different story.
I had to use my cell phone to send quick emails to my friends and regular contacts, letting them know that I will be off-line for awhile.
It's a real pain using a cell phone to send emails. We have very spotty cell coverage where we live. The signal is constantly getting dropped, causing me to have to re-send my message. Connection time is slower than dial-up, and that's maddening as it is, especially when you've been spoiled by high-speed broadband Internet.
And because of the slow connection time and having to constantly re-send my messages, doing emails over the cell phone is a big drain on the battery. So I need to keep the phone plugged into the charger at all times.
Also, for some reason, I am limited in the length of the message that I can send through email on my cell phone.
Now you can see why I prefer not to use my cell phone for emails.
I was simply going to have to wait until I had a proper Internet connection.
Because I had no Internet, I could not do my on-line job search. Seeing that the past weekend's papers had no job listings that were appropriate for me to apply for, that wasn't all that a big deal.
Now that I had no Internet around which to center my life, I had to find something else to do.
First order of business was to place a call with the contractor we hired to fix the damaged ceiling in my studio that resulted from when the pipes burst at the end of January.
All that was left to be done was to have the ceiling painted and to have the lights installed. I've been working with no lights in my studio for 2 months.
And for 5 months, our house ~ including the front porch ~ has been so crammed with stuff from my studio (which is a HUGE room) so that the only way we can get from one room to another is to travel on the tight goat paths that intersected each room.
What we quickly discovered while travelling these goat paths is that they make great hiding places for the marauding herds of dust buffalo that lie in wait to ambush the weary passer-by. We've been having to deal with quite the invasion of dust buffalo.
Anyhow, both Neil and I had left messages with the contractor ~ both on his voice mail and with a real live person. Yet three and a half weeks went by without a peep. At this point even a call with a lame excuse would have been more acceptable than the total ignoring that we've received.
So I placed my call that Monday morning, telling that real live person that if we don't receive satisfaction by the end of the week, that I am going to call the insurance adjuster to discuss our getting another contractor to complete the job.
In 15 minutes, the contractor called. The painter will be there first thing tomorrow morning.
In order to be consistent with my extreme displeasure in the situation, I let my inner bitch do the talking. So instead of my usual, "Oh, how you're doing? How's the baby?" the first words out of my mouth after I answered the phone were, "When's my job gonna get done?"
I guess all it took was an old-fashioned threat, along with a little bit of help from my inner bitch.
Shortly afterward, Neil and I took a ride up to the Wareham Career Center so that Neil could apply for membership and register for an up-coming resume workshop.
While checking the Hot Jobs listings I didn't find anything that was suitable for me. However, I did find something that was a suitable for Neil ~ a mechanical engineering position in Taunton that starts at 85K. Not bad.
We stuck around a bit longer for Neil to talk with a career counselor about the position.
As promised, the painter was here first thing Tuesday morning, the same day the cable guy showed up to swap out the cable box that got fried from Friday's lightning strike.
That day I decided to tackle a long-neglected project ~ cleaning out ALL the litter boxes as well as "doing the parrot cage."
Of course, doing the parrot cage requires more than just picking up and throwing out the old soiled newspapers and then laying down a fresh new layer.
First of all, I had to make sure that the parrot, an ornery cuss, was secure in his cage. No need to have him trying to take a chunk out of whatever available body part that happens to be within his reach as I clean.
Next comes removing the broken baby gate sections which I tie around two sides of the cage to keep the dogs from getting to the "doggie treats" that find their way under the cage.
You see, under the parrot cage there is former ferret cage bottom that has been reincarnated as this really humongous cat box. The dogs' hearts break over not being able to get to those delectable "kitty nuggets." But that still does not keep them from trying.
Before I can move the cage and get to the papers underneath, I have to clean out that giant litter box. It's not a simple process of "pick up the box and dump the contents in a trash bag."
No sirree, Bob.
In this case I have to painstakingly remove the contents a little at a time, using the dust pan as a shovel before I can actually lift the pan out from between the cross bars of the parrot cage. And I have to do that without spilling the well-used and marinating cat litter on myself while avoiding kneeling on the bird-poop crusted and little dog pee-soaked newspapers.
Once that is done, the rest is easy. All I have to do next is gather up the nasty newspapers, sweep up the floor, give the floor a good wash with the Swiffer, and then put everything back together again.
(With such a required production, it's easy to see why we easily neglect this task. If only it were as straight forward as cleaning a regular cat box.)
After getting everything together and back in its place, I still had to figure out a way to keep the dogs from getting to the cat box.
Because one side of the cage is against the wall and two sides are blocked with the broken sections of an old baby gate, I had to leave a narrow gap between the cage and a second wall in order of the cats to fit through.
The only problem with that is that the big dogs manage to find a way to the cache of kitty nuggets.
I've tried placing something heavy near that corner of the cage, creating an L-shaped passage for the cats. However, the dogs remained unthwarted. They merely muscled that heavy object out of the way.
So Tuesday, after I got the parrot area re-assembled, I decided to put a new idea to the test.
I extended one of the baby gate sides so that it touched the wall. Then I took my Dremel tool and cut one of the bars to a height that would allow the cats access to their kitty water closet, but not allow the dogs to stick their heads and reach in to grab the buried (and often unburied) treasure.
So far that seems to work.
Wednesday is Ariana's day off from work. Normally her day off means that I can sleep in since I don't have to go through the ordeal of trying to get her up for work.
However, this day I had to be up bright and early for the electrician and his crew. They arrived on time and quickly installed the new lights that have been sitting in my studio for two months.
Let there be light!
And finally there was!
After the electrical crew left, Neil and I had to travel to Fall River to get him a new suit for an interview that he had scheduled the following day. Because my big guy had gotten bigger, he needed a bigger suit.
We stopped at Professional Image, one of the factory outlets in Fall River. The sales girl was extremely helpful in finding Neil the perfect suit right off the bat.
(However, she was totally lacking in personality. She did not react to any of my jokes, which would have caused others to snort their Diet Cokes out through their nostrils.)
Tony the Greek tailor was a peach. Despite the short notice and extremely pressing time constraints, he promised to have Neil's trousers altered within an hour.
(And he told me that he makes the best gyro ~that's "yeer-roh" ~ when I told him that I like to go to our local Greek restaurant for my gyro fix.)
I took Neil to Caldera, mine and Roma's favorite Portuguese restaurant, to help pass the time.
As I was hoping, our favorite waitress, Vera, was there. She is such a sweetheart.
Seeing that last time I was there I was cheated out of my left-over Portuguese ribs because the waiter accidentally accidentally switched them with someone else's left-overs, I had to order the ribs to assure myself those tasty left-overs. Neil ordered a Mozambique chicken dish.
Of course I had to order a glass of Casal Garcia. But seeing that Roma was not with us, it had to be just that one glass and not a whole carafe.
Not being one to say no to dessert, I had a serving of passion fruit mousse (which I would have preferred it being fresher and not dried around the edges) and a nice tiny cup of espresso.
Ah! There's nothing like fine Mediterranean dining! It's not just the food, but the whole experience. And I drink in that whole experience.
But not my dear hubby. He would have been much happier with simple American fare. But he was still a great sport in humoring me in my dining choice. (Thank you, Neil!)
By the time we were done, so was Tony the tailor. In the time that it took me to return from the bathroom, Tony had informed me that I missed the fashion show. Neil had already returned to the fitting room to change back into his regular pants.
Tony the Greek did an excellent job. And because he made sure that the work would be done within the hour, Neil felt that Tony deserved a nice tip on top of his tailoring fee.
Of course, being the polite man that he was, Tony refused. But when we insisted, he gave us a big smile of gratitude. So did his 75-year-old father who still came to the shop every day to work.
After we got home, Neil and I moved the heavy studio furniture out of the library and into the studio so that when Ken the painter returned the next day to paint the library ceiling (seeing that there is no separation between my studio and the library) he would be able to do his job without any obstacles standing in his way.
Later that evening, I got to thinking about the kind of tattoo design I would like for myself. I've been thinking about tattoos ever since I took Ariana to Sinners and Saints Tattoo in Wareham for her graduation gift, which was a tattoo job to cover up her not-so-aesthetic attempts at home tattooing.
Because Ariana had an extensive area to cover up, we had to make easily more than one trip. As such, we've gotten to know the artists, Roger the owner, and our dear Joey the "shop slave," or as he likes to call himself, the "shop bitch."
Making all those trips to Sinners and Saints got me started on thinking about the kind of tattoo I would like.
What kind of tattoo would I like? Because it is an indelible statement on my flesh, it would have to be something that would remain constant, surviving the many whims that pass through the changes of time.
One thing that will always remain a constant is my Lithuanian heritage and the intense pride in my culture. Thus my tattoo design would have to reflect something Lithuanian.
So I dug out my Lithuanian books and jewelry and started sketching while I had Neil do some scanning. I transferred the scans into the computer where I imported them into CorelDRAW so that I could start refining them.
I was so into doing the design work on the computer that I had gone to bed much later than I planned.
My design was going to be a simple wide bracelet on on left forearm. It was going to consist of two design elements: a grass snake with a crown from the well-known Lithuanian folktale Elgė and the Serpent King and sprigs of rue, the national herb of Lithuania.
Next morning, having discovered that I drew the snake with the wrong curvature. I had to quickly sketch out the correct curvature and have Neil scan that before he left for his orientation at the career center and his interview up towards Boston.
From there, it was easy refining the line work. After several attempts of various rotations and placements of the rue sprigs, I finally got a design that had no overlapping and crashing of design motifs. I printed up two copies ~ one with just the line work and the other with the color placement.
From there I decided to do some more design work on my computer. I went into the file where I was working on the business cards for my business.
It took no time at all for me for finish designing my business card. After I was done, I followed the suggestion of my former computer graphic design instructor to print the cards on photo paper and then apply a plain sheet of paper to the back with spray adhesive.
A bit easier said than done, especially for someone who was becoming impatient like I was.
While I was able to find my can of spray adhesive, it would not work, not even after I cleaned the gunk out of the nozzle and established a good air flow. Thus, I had to resort to ~ yuck! ~ rubber cement.
Still the end result came out neat, and I was rather pleased with myself.
And I was pleased that I got a lot done on the computer despite my not being connected to the Internet.
Not only that, I was pleased that the repair work to the ceiling was FINALLY complete.
Before you know it, it was time for me to go and pick up Ariana from work. I took with me my print outs of my tattoo design so that we could immediately head to Sinners and Saints and make an appointment to get inked. I was especially hoping that I could get the tattoo done in time for the Lithuanian picnic this coming Sunday on the 22nd.
Anyhow, I did better than just getting an appointment. There was an available artist right then and there. Even though I was a bit disappointed that I would not be having Ariana's tattoo artist, Ken, do my tattoo, I was excited over the idea of getting a tattoo that very night.
Well it seems that there was no need for my disappointment because I got a phenomenal artist working on me. Fred is the only artist at Sinners and Saints who was trained in the West Coast tattoo style (whatever that is) and the only artist there who does three-dimensional coloring and shading.
I really lucked out because Fred and I share the same sense of shading and coloring. How cool is that?
It's been around twenty five years since my last tattoo, a butterfly on my hip. Remembering the pain from that tattoo, I braced myself for the worst. So imagine my surprise to feel a sensation that was akin to running a fingernail on my skin!
I couldn't believe how relatively painless it was. Could my new degree of pain tolerance have something to do with my giving birth without the benefit of any pain killers?
The most uncomfortable thing about getting the tattoo was returning my arm back to its normal position after having to hold it at an awkward angle for several minutes. My God! It felt like a dislocated shoulder being popped back into place. Well, maybe not that bad, but still bad enough.
Wow! I had a really gorgeous tattoo. Not only that, mine is an original design. No one else will sport a tattoo like this one.
Yet already I was giving thought to my next tattoo. However, I decided that for the time being, I want to savor the elegant simplicity of this design. And I was anxious to show off my new piece of body art.
Certainly getting my tattoo was the climax of my Internet vacation. What followed afterwards was simply ho-hum, including my visit to the dentist.
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