whereupon I admit that I’m a dingbat, but a nice one
Thursday, July 29 
I’m a complete technological Neanderthal. Or maybe I just wasn’t blessed with a brain that grasps how shit generally works. When computers became widely used in college I clung to my typewriter and whiteout strips. Now THOSE could be understood and counted on. Cell phones, with all their functions, scare me. So I don’t have one. When Shawn leaves town he scribbles instructions for the TV clicker in case I want to watch something. (Well there’s TWO clickers for the TV, for Pete’s sake. And everyone here hogs them, so why would anyone expect me to know how to use them? Is it too much to ask for an On/Off button and one of those old-school dials you turn the channel with?!)
When my deskmate, A-Hole, gives me pointers on how to use my Nikon D-200 camera I listen patiently to his whole spiel, then I say, “Could you show me the automatic settings in case Shawn goes messing with the camera and I just want to point and shoot?”
My first car, a ’78 Chevette that I worked hard to save $700 to buy, died within six months because I didn’t know you had to put that pesky oil into it. I bought gas for the damn thing whenever it ran out. Wasn’t that enough? Who knew cars were so needy. I found out when the engine seized on the freeway. The sound of the car shaking so violently had me convinced a helicopter was hovering overhead for quite a while until I figured out my car wasn’t moving anymore. And there was smoke and a nasty smell.
Despite the fact that I love to cook, this confuzzlement follows me into the kitchen as well. It took me a year to warm up to the KitchenAid Shawn brought with him when we combined households, and my sister-in-law has had to slowly demonstrate how the Cuisinart her mom gave me works…twice. She didn’t read the instructions, she just wiggled stuff around (which I also tried!) and figured it out.
Anyway, all this is to underscore that I came to this whole blogging party a bit late, as it was painstaking for me to learn out how to post and connect with people in internetland. But I’m here now! And here’s my latest news flash: Besides keeping up with people you already know and like, you can meet really awesome people you never would’ve otherwise met via blogging.
My friend over at Bike Bliss had been following a bike-related blog of a woman in Chicago, and when Bike Bliss went to Chicago a month ago, she and the Chicago blogger met up and went for a bike ride. How cool is that?
Anyway, I got my own taste of that after I wrote (whined?) about having to kill our rooster a few weeks ago. A minor catastrophes reader, whom I’d never met from eastern Montana — seven hours from my home — sent me a sweet note saying she’d love to replace my rooster with a new little laying hen from her ranch, and that she could drop it off the next time she came this way.
So this past week we sat on my deck (I knew we’d be friends when she didn’t make a face when I poured her a glass of boxed wine.) and got to know each other. Despite the fact that she and her husband live on 3,000 acres many miles from their nearest neighbor and grow the majority of the food they eat in her huge garden, she oohed and aahed when I showed her my garden, chicken coop, beehive and worm bin.
Also, when I showed her my lettuce, we discovered it was INFESTED with slugs, in part because it rained most of June here. I’d been feeding the slugs to the chickens, so she helped me collect an ENORMOUS AMOUNT, and then when I realized how many we had, I asked her if she would mind holding mine too while I ran and got the camera.
My new friend and I picked slugs off my lettuce and fed them to the chickens. Salad anyone?
Don’t know if she'll be by again after that or not, but I sure had fun meeting her. This here Internet sure is a mighty friendly place, thanks to y’all.
END NOTE: My father-in-law, who doesn’t use computers, is finally entertaining the notion of buying his first laptop. A friend of his was showing him all you can do on the Internet. “You can watch videos from the Internet on the computer!” he told Shawn. “Videos like 10 minutes long!”
Shawn laughed at him. I know exactly how my father-in-law feels.
Reader Comments (13)
Oh, wow, my hand is famous! Broken ring finger an all! And don't forget, Megan, we were thinking about marketing the slug slime (with a new name) after we noticed how soft our skin felt, thanks to whatever they were exuding onto our own personal hands. "You can trust our rich organic garden product, absolutely natural."
And thanks for not mentioning in public just how much of your Cardboardeaux I drank. Like, all of it.
And your gardens are MUCH tidier than my house - by FAR.
And thanks for the look on my daughter's face when I said I was off to see a woman whose blog I read. She goggled at me and said, "Mom? You read a blog?" I'm not a total troglodyte, for crying out loud. Like you, I'm part of this dazzling 21st century with all its techno-glitz and dazzle!
p.s. I know where you live. "I'll be back-" (in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice)
Dad , with a lap top no way. Don't tell him about net flix. Can he even turn a computor on ? I too hate all these new gadgets and have no idea how to run them. I do like computors and have mastered them as much as I care to. After all they are useful and I met my husband on a web site. That is so funny about the remote control. Whenever I would babysit or house sit I would need a whole page of instructions on how to use the remotes. One house I never did manage to watch tv. I am so glad you learned to blog and I am in awe of you being able to put pictures on and everything. It is more than I care to learn how to do.
Nice Lady with Dog: I'm so glad you'll be back! I'll have the cardboardeaux ready :) The tidiness of the garden is a neuroses that has to do with the lack of control I feel in living with boys inside the house. It's my ONE place that no one messes with.
SDA: Also part of my rant about TV clickers: they require batteries, and the batteries are forever falling out the back of our and scattering beneath couch cushions and such. Bother!
I hear you on the remote thing. We need 3 different remotes just to watch a DVD. We used to have a Universal that was supposed to replace the 3 but it never worked right, at least for me, and it is gathering dust somewhere.
BTW those slugs are really gross. I can't believe either of you are actually holding them. Yuck. At least you have some slug disposal units.
Hey FaveAuntie,
Remember, we'd been imbibing adult beverage (in moderation) (goes without saying) and we're really earth mothers (like, don't own a razor) and in my case there's a really immature need to do outrageous things, but only with organic stuff. The slugs were a natural, under the circumstances.
Maybe I won't go into detail about the worm farm, but it was pretty amazing to me.
Love, love Cardbordeaux! So glad you and Nice Lady with Dog got to meet up. It's so fun to hang with folks you've never met but share the same loves.
Hooray for you for feeding slugs to the chickens! Atta girl! I just talked to some lovely people today who are into live trapping mice in their houses and yards. I just can't see making a tidy little environment for vermin. Oy.
To bad you couldn't let the chickens "free range" through the garden (Angus fast food) and eliminate the middle "hand". Sorry its late and its been a "dark and stormy" nite.
Did Shawn ever tell you that he called me dingbat when he was about 2yrs old.
It is one of my first memories.
My computer geek of a husband always insists on getting me a blackberry so I can keep everything straight, I told him the calender hanging on the kitchen wall is fine with me. BTW, I'm with FavAuntie, couldn't hold those slugs even if I imbibed all night. We're alike that way.
I'm way, way behind on blogging but have loved catching up with your writing this afternoon. Sadly, it seems all of my favorite things revolve around the food in your posts -- primarily the roadside fondue and the almond tea cake. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!
I worked on a farm in Wales where I had to collect small caterpillars and slugs in a can with a lid, so they didn't crawl out, then kill them. I tried feeding them to the chickens but they turned their beaks up at me. The ducks would eat the slugs but they wouldn't come near me so I had to toss the slugs in their direction and hope they found them in the tall grass. I knew a guy that would just squish the caterpillars between his fingers, but I took the caterpillars the chickens wouldn't eat and squished them in between 2 bricks. I hated doing it, but I couldn't NOT do it and risk having them return to the cabbage and lettuce. It was one of my least favorite jobs on the farm. I even preferred cleaning out the chicken coop to killing caterpillars. :)
Holding slugs on a first "date" now that Nice Lady With Dog is someone I've got to meet! (I like her already). Have you ever seen the slugs in the Pacific Northwest? Amazing. Also, someone who doesn't have time to figure out how to watch TV is not a dingbat, they just have their priorities straight! Why sit in front of the telly watching the Boor de France when you could be out in your garden imbibing Cardboardueax? Maybe you could come over to my house to give me some gardening tips and we could break open some BlackBox.