Up early seeking small victories, as I try to fix my Wi-Fi.
One error message says, check your DNS. Below that it says, “If you don’t know what DNS is, check with your organization.”
I’m not sure which organization. So I checked with the Auto Club, then the American Heart Association. I also have calls in to the NFL and the CIA.
Then Windows runs some diagnostics, which confirms that my Wi-Fi is indeed down. Thank you, Windows!
Another error message says: Error Code: RESULT_CODE_HUNG.
Tell me, do these tech guys ever leave their mothers’ basements?
More and more, those with the worst people-skills are deciding how we communicate, solve problems, interact, meet.
Lord, let us pray.
No worries. I’m just looking for small victories, not Super Bowls. The Wi-Fi seems down a while, and I know it will somehow – through some fusion of technology and mysticism that no one can ever comprehend – eventually bounce back.
In the meantime, I still have no small victory to speak of. So I take the New Girl’s dog out. A micro dog really. Such a face too, one of those cupcake/fox/terrier mixes that are so popular on the west side of Los Angeles.
There are life wisdoms we realize but don’t often articulate. For one: “The most-beautiful women have the smallest dogs.”
His name is Stuart Little, and he is minus many of the molecules that make up what we usually think of as a dog. He trembles when he sees me, not out of fear, more out of envy, jealousy and lust. He loves me… he loves me not.
As in days gone by, he’s a total he, there is no ambiguity. Yet I’ve noticed that Stuart squats when he pees. My goal today – my small victory – will be to teach him to lift his leg a little, the way White Fang does.
White Fang lifts her leg when she pees, sometimes bracing it against the wall, like a cowboy drunk. For a Russian wolf, she has a lot of bad cowpoke habits.
I’ve raised White Fang, a she, as you would a he. I also raised my daughters as boys, my sons as boys. The only person I didn’t raise as a boy was Posh, though I could’ve. She was so young when we met, essentially a kid. Posh was 19; I was 21. As it turned out, that was maybe too much of an age difference.
By the way, Posh and I would’ve celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday. That’s a long time to be mostly married. Spiritually, she was very feral, yet loyal, devoted and amazing.
You know, they say millennials aren’t marrying — or buying breakfast cereal or fabric softener. Or having kids. Basically, millennials are putting America out of business.
I admire them so much — these pasty kids with their weird ideas on Maxism and oat milk. They drink boba all day and write gibberish such as RESULT_CODE_HUNG.
Neither of my millennial daughters would do that, I think I know them that well. Though I raised them both as men, one is engaged to a man now and one has been married to the same man twice already – once in a typically girly wedding during Covid, and again in a typically girly wedding late last fall.
My amazing daughters now live — in this bewildering world of voodoo and deceit – as tributes to their no-nonsense mother, whose only real passion was her children.
The lovely and patient older daughter is already a world-class mother, and I think Rapunzel, a tremendous and doting auntie, will be a world-class mama too.
That would’ve made Posh so proud. She really was their biggest influence, though she never coached them in sports or taught them how to drive (we couldn’t subject her to that kind of risk; too important.)
Posh was their biggest influence because she taught them how to win a series of tiny victories — one here, one there. The right birthday gift, a timely phone call, a snuggle on the couch. If you string together enough of those, you wind up with a Super Bowl life.
Today, Posh’s ethos glows in her daughters’ beaming smiles, how they change a diaper, the way they stir the soup.
Moms. Does anyone ever love us more?
Props to all those who took part in Saturday’s toasty hike, and thanks to the bar at Dish for being so welcoming to a funky-sweaty bunch of studs like us. Next up: a Memorial weekend Gin & Tonic Society bash. Stay tuned for details. Cheers!