The Junk Drawer

A friend emailed me today about how she acquired a particularly nasty virus that rendered her computer unusable. Let this be a warning about where you can pickup bad things on the interwebz.

Anywhere.

She had just gotten back from a wonderful trip to the UK. She reports:

It’s a funny story really. There were so many baby lambs in England and we got to bottle-feed one. So, last night before I left for home, I Googled videos of bottle-feeding baby lambs because I missed all the lambs. There were a ton of cute baby lamb videos. I found a whole Web site of baby lamb videos called Ewe-Tube.

While on that site, I accidentally clicked on an ad that gave me the virus. I could tell right away that something was wrong because it started downloading files to my computer. Ctrl-Alt-Del wouldn’t even work. It’s just occurred to me that baby lamb is redundant. Anyway, who would think that baby lambs could be harmful? What kind of a sicko puts a virus on a baby lamb Web site?

I agree. What kind of sicko does that? I say viruses should be limited to stupid places people visit on the web, like porn sites and … well, just porn sites. Not baby lamb sites. The baby lambs don’t want to hurt you. They want to love you and wrap their cuteness around you and give you lamby kisses and hugs. More if you bottle-feed them.

Lambies good, viruses baaaaaa-d!

Don’t even go to that Ewe-tube site, even out of curiosity. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting a comp-ewe-ter virus.

God. Remember when the Internet was free of crap and spam and viruses and spyware and junk? It should just be full of baby lambs and cotton candy and rainbows.

And our blogs.

So let’s hear it. Have you ever picked up a virus from a place you least expected it? Share your horror stories. It might make my friend feel better.

Back in 1977 I took part in a charity walk to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. Here I am in all my glory on the day of the event. Let’s set aside the outfit for a moment. In fact, let’s set it aside all together, because it’s hideous and scary and it makes me sad.

Seriously, stop looking at it.

OK. So prior to “The Walk,” as it was known around town, I dutifully knocked on neighbors’ doors asking for donations. I gave them my spiel that I planned to walk the entire route and asked if they’d make a pledge of some increment, say $.50 per mile. Even a pledge of $.20 a mile was something I was glad to record on my pledge sheet.

The course was a whopping 26 miles, a damn lot of miles for a 12 year old, now that I think about it. Some neighbors doubted I could finish.

I told all the nice donors that I’d come back to collect their money a day or two after I completed the walk. I would get a card punched every couple of miles to show that I’d hit all the checkpoints and they’d know how much to pay me.

I remember the walk being a blast. Motoring along with my friends and a mass of other people, it had a party feel to it. But my body really took a beating. We walked at a decent pace, didn’t kill ourselves, but considering how many miles I logged I was one sloppy mess at the finish line.

The walk route ended at a local high school. As soon as I got there, I headed straight for the ladies room for a potty break and to make an attempt to look human again.

The bathroom was jam-packed with other walkers, so there wasn’t room or time to freshen up much. I just wanted to get out, get home and take a shower.

I called my brother to come pick me up and when I got home, I made a beeline to my pledge sheet to calculate how much money I raised and to staple my punch card to it.

Reaching into my light blue, white-belted hot pants with apparently very shallow pockets, I pulled out nothing.

The card wasn’t there.

The card that showed I had slogged 26 miles in the hot sun. The card that would explain to anyone who asked why my feet had blown up to twice their size. The card I carried so far and so long and was so careful to get punched at the checkpoints.

Gone.

Fini.

I’d either dropped it after the last checkpoint, lost it somewhere in that mess of a bathroom, or anywhere else I’d been on the school grounds.

I had no way to prove to all my donors that I’d done something incredible that day. Something even I wasn’t sure I could do. No way to collect money for a good cause. Not. One. Penny.

We drove back to the high school to look for it wherever I remembered I’d been. But nothing.

I resigned myself to the fact that I was careless and stupid and an idiot. I wasn’t right for days. I decided I didn’t want to revisit the donors and try to explain with pleading eyes that “Really! I swear I walked the whole thing!”

I blame my outfit. Evil from head to toe. Really, one look at it and I should have known I’d be doomed from the start.

The economic downturn hits hard at Plymouth Yarn Company. Two different babies cost more to model sweaters than one. But it’s all good. The lad can use his earnings to pay for therapy in 20 years.

What say you? Same baby?

I read a very funny, yet scary, post over at Redhead Ranting called How Did We Survive? Jen takes a trip down memory lane, showing pictures of ways in which she and her brother should never have survived as children, given the absence of current day safety recommendations.

Check it out, if for no other reason than to see what a child’s car seat looked like in 1964. It’s simply medieval.

Her post reminded me of an at-home craft project my classmates and I were assigned in Catholic grade school.

A crucifix made out of burnt match sticks. Here is an example:

At the age of eight, we were told to take a box of thick match sticks, light them all afire and blow them out when the tips were charred just right.

Line them up neatly in the shape of a cross and glue them down.

I remember doing all of my match strikes outside, thanks to the one ounce of sense I had acquired by then.

My projects before this mostly involved gluing pebbles, elbow macaroni or cotton balls (and requisite pipe cleaners) to empty milk cartons and turning them into assorted sad-looking creations only a mother could love.

Never anything with fire. Fire kinda bad. It just occurred to me that perhaps we were supposed to get supervision. Oops.

Still, I can’t imagine any school today assigning such a project. And I can’t imagine boys being sent home with matches and told to “Go ahead, fire ’em up!” by a teacher.

What’s sad is I heard about someone through an acquaintance whose son burned down his house because he lit a cloud of hair spray on fire in the garage. Girls would never think to light hair spray on fire.

But we would build a small bonfire if it made Jesus happy.

This post is more for my benefit than yours.

I’m taking a two-week vacation in early June. Everyone who knows it asks me where I’m going.

While I’d like to say I’m jumping on a plane to take me to some faraway place, the truth is I’m headed to a dark, dank corner of my basement.

I plan to lock myself down there for at least the first week so I can finally get my book off the ground.

No sunlight.

No fresh air.

No email.

No cats.

No husband.

No TV.

No distractions.

Just me and my laptop.

I’ve been wanting to write a book for the last couple of years and I settled on the subject matter only recently. You’ll probably all be mad at me for not telling you what it’s about, but I’m superstitious and feel that if I tell you, I’ll jinx myself.

I also feel if I announce publicly that I’m going to venture into book territory, I’d better actually DO IT.

So send me your good vibes that despite being surrounded by dusty old Christmas decorations, furniture we don’t use, kitty litter boxes and bugs falling on my head, I will still feel creative enough to knock out a few thousand words a day of decent book material.

I consider this venture the hardest thing I’ll ever do, but probably the most rewarding.

If you’ve ever tried to write a book, I’m open to advice and suggestions, but I’m scared you’ll all tell me it’s a waste of my time.

You know what?

Lie to me.