Jolly jolly jolly jolly Easter technology

 

So a friend and I have been trying to figure out something new and amusing to do for the blog. *  It had got to the point by this week that we really needed to do a kind of run-through to see if it was going to work**, but I've been ill*** and she has, like, a job and a life† and scheduling has been a ratbag.  But we finally decided we could do it this morning.

            The first thing that happened is that I overslept.  SO WHAT FRELLING ELSE IS NEW.††  So when I finally texted my friend (as prearranged) she had also overslept††† arrgh arrgh arrgh arrgh so we both stumbled around finding caffeine (and clothing) and feeding/hurtling domestic fauna and so on.  As one does.

            Articulateness was beginning to emerge from the enshrouding mists.  Blah.  Gar.  We were tentatively going to do this by Skype instant messaging, but we were going to have a video-enabled chat about what we were trying to do first, in so far as I was capable of either speaking audibly‡ or hearing anyone speaking to me.‡‡

            The first thing that happened was that we couldn't get Skype to talk to us. . . . No, wait.  The first thing that happened was that Pooka was doing one of her little, Message?  Me?  Message?, deals, so my friend had texted back and I'm wondering why she hadn't because it wasn't showing.  Eventually I went hunting and there were like three new ones the last one being, Hey, where r u?  ARRRRGH.  It's sort of the modern tech version of catching your roommate with the empty plate in her hands and the crumbs on her face:  Chocolate cake?  What chocolate cake?‡‡‡

            Then, having re-established contact by text . . . Skype refused to connect.  R u there?  yes im here where r u . . . note that there are two iPhones, a Macbook and a desktop PC involved, and we are playing merry, merry musical gadgets . . . eventually Skype acknowledged both my and my friend's existence at the same time on one machine each and a sort of connection was established . . . except she couldn't hear me, I couldn't see her, and I was getting a helpful pop-up message saying 'your broadband is moving at a somewhat slower than measurable rate.  Glaciers are faster.  Liver flukes are evolving into diplodocuses while we wait for the signal from the historic maypole on your cul-de-sac.  We don't hold out a lot of hope for this conversation you're trying to have.'

            Eventually my friend and I gave up on the preparatory chat option.  She was still trying to reassure me (we were still texting, mostly successfully) that Skype IM was really easy, nothing could go wrong.  Yes.  And I'm the queen of Sheba.  My Skype kept claiming that my friend was off line.  My friend kept claiming that her Skype was telling her I was off line.  Shifting from one demonic piece of kit to another of course aggravates the situation.  I could sit there watching Pooka and the desktop pointing fingers at each other and saying:  She did it!§  I turned everything off and then turned it back on again.  Skype was now claiming I was back on line, but I wasn't allowed to change my status.  I WAS GOING TO BE ON LINE FOREVER.§§

            At this point I received another text from my friend.  Ur still off line, it said.  ARRRRRRRRRGH, I replied.  R u near ur landline? she next inquired (crisply).  I'm going to phone u. 

            Somebody tell me why I could hear her laughing through her texts.

            Um, I texted back, yes.  But I nvr use it because connection ALWAYS bad.

            She phoned me while I was standing in the middle of the office floor at the cottage, watched with some interest by relaxed and half-asleep hellhounds, and swearing like an entire regiment of troopers from low backgrounds, trying to UNTANGLE the frelling WIRING between the phone and the message machine§§§ and between the machine and the wall, which, because I never use any of it, mats itself into plastic dreadlocks.  HOW DOES IT DO THIS.  IT SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE. PLASTIC FRELLING FLEX CANNOT FRELLING FELT ITSELF.  Sure it can.  It's like how coathangers breed in empty closets.  When the phone went BRIIIIIIIIIIING the way cheap landlines still do I was so startled I dropped the whole mess.

            We had the conversation.  She got me on Skype.  She got me on Skype's Instant Messaging, which was hiding.  No, really.  We had our run-through.  Our idea works.

            Mwa hahahahahahahahahaha.  Oh, this is going to be fun.#

            Stay tuned.           

* * *

* This is a long story which I'm about to start torturing you with hints about.  But for tonight, it's just murky, inscrutable background.^ 

^ Mwa hahahahahaha 

** Okay, maybe I'm starting to torture you now.  

*** You may have noticed.  

† She does stuff like hang out.  There aren't even any handbells involved.  I really don't understand why we're friends.  I suppose we each provide the other with variety in her social relationships.  

†† I'm not sleeping through the alarm.  It's just I keep putting it back as I thrash and flounce and periodically notice that another hour has gone by and I'm still not asleep.  I don't like missing half the day this way, but I like even less not being able to use ANY of the day because I'm too tired.  Conventionally the phrase 'her blood ran like fire through her veins' sounds exciting.  She's just caught sight of her true love—or possibly he/she has his/her tongue down our heroine's throat and his/her hand, um, but I don't usually write those stories—or her enemy on the battlefield.  Something is going to happen.  Something other than our stupid heroine being unable to find a comfortable position to sleep in her sodding unenchanted bed in her sodding unenchanted cottage in her sodding unenchanted little town.  ARRRRRRGH.  I will never feel the same about that phrase.  Also, I need to be able to breathe.  

††† She also has a lurgy.  SHE'S FIVE THOUSAND MILES AWAY.  I DIDN'T GIVE IT TO HER.  

‡  See:  Lurch.  Or a really really bad recording of Paul Robeson.  

‡‡ This didn't stop me hearing my ex-bells this morning.  Sigh. 

‡‡‡ I shouldn't say things like this.  Next time Pooka will eat them. 

§  Yes.  They both had chocolate cake crumbs on their faces. 

§§ Note that today's friend is THE ONLY PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE I EVER SKYPE WITH BECAUSE SKYPE IS ONE THE MANY SO CALLED WONDERS OF MODERN SO CALLED TECHNOLOGY I DO NOT GET ALONG WITH.  Hannah and I tried it once.  She hated it as much as I did.^

 ^ Us old people have to stick together.  Silver surfers, for godssake.  I nearly took myself off the grid permanently when I heard that term for the first time, and went to live in a cabin in the woods with oil lamps and a fireplace. 

§§§ Which I also never look at or play back because the connection is so bad I can't hear what whoever it is is saying and I probably don't want to anyway, who uses a landline any more?^ 

^ I give no one Pooka's number.  Peter has it.  The archangels have it.   Okay, Merrilee, Hannah, and today's friend have it.  Fiona has it.  That's about it.

               I don't like phones, okay?   I've never liked phones.

# After all, we have Blogmom for the blog.  Nobody messes with Blogmom.