Category Archives: Adventures at Home

Today, our keyboard started randomly shifting so that iN tHE MIDDLE OF TYPING, EVERYTHING YOU WROTE BECAME ALL CAPS. I tried cleaning it thoroughly, which fixed the problem for about ten minutes. But then tHE PROBLEM RETURNED. I tried repeatedly tapping the shift keys to get the glitch worked out since in my experience, hitting machines often does work. And it actually did work. Kinda. I’d test out the keys by doing this: fgfgfgfgfgfgfgfgf. And it would be good for about twenty keystrokes, and then it would do this: fgfgfgfGFGFGFGFGFGFGFgfgfgFGFGFgfgfGFGFgfGFgfGFGfgFGFGFGFGF. SO THEN I GAVE UP AND GOT OUT THE OLD KEYBOARD.

YES, WE HAVE AN OLD KEYBOARD. IT’S THE ONE MY BROTHER TED SPILLED COKE ON AND WHICH APPLE THEN REPLACED FOR FREE WHEN WE CALLED THEM TO REPORT HOW IT DIDN’T WORK. I’VE KEPT IT IN THE BASEMENT ALL THESE YEARS JUST IN CASE OUR NEW KEYBOARD BEGAN DOING SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

So I plugged in the old one and tested out the keys. They all work except for the last letter in the alphabet, which I can’t type right now since I’m using the old one. Luckily, that’s not a very common letter to use. I’ve typed this whole entry without once having to use it. Once, I was gonna write the more colloquial form of the word because, but I couldn’t since the last letter of the alphabet doesn’t exist on this keyboard.

I informed Eileen that our current problem would necessitate the purchase of a wireless keyboard and mouse plus the needed Bluetooth adaptor for the computer. It would only cost a total of $120 or so. But she argued me out of that logical decision and pointed out that just because we needed a replacement didn’t mean we needed to upgrade. Damn her reasoning! In the male world, replacement = upgrade. In Eileen’s world, upgrade = $100 more than is necessary.

Our boats came this past Thursday. I went down to the UW boathouse to pick them up and . . . aw hell, I don’t feel like telling the whole whiney story. Here’s the short version: we have the wrong boats. Completely wrong boats were delivered to us, so we can’t row in them and we’re getting the real boats (ie. the ones we ordered) sometime late next week, which, translated, means either September 27th or October 3rd.

Classes at school are beginning to take on some personalities. They’re looking good. But I tell ya, I’m not used to 50 minute periods. They go by pretty fast compared to the two hour classes I had in Ecuador. I feel like I’m not getting much done in that amount of time. Teenagers are also an odd bunch, eh? I knew this, of course, but the past week has just been a large reminder. The scariest thing is that I can already sense that I’ll be used to it in another week or two.

One of my narcissistic fantasies about returning to school involved befriending all the Spanish-speaking students with my Latino culture hipness. That one died a quick death. Teacher equals unhip, to begin with, and then there’s the fact that I don’t speak Spanish as well as many other teachers do. And we’re in the USA, where teenagers are cooler than everybody else.

Eileen’s also started with school. So far, she’s very unimpressed. We were gonna post a comparison between SECAP, the hole-in-the-wall school I worked at in Ecuador (where I kicked in my office door), and the UW Madison Doctorate Program in Audiology; but again, it’s a long, whiney story. The short version: they’re both really disorganized; they both cancel classes without telling people; they’re both run by men named Fernando (not really); and nobody really knows what’s going on at either place.

This past week, the plumber dude came over to fix our leaking shower. We call him plumber dude because he says “dude” a lot, which adds to his entertaining nature. And he’s the coolest plumber I’ve ever dealt with (he’s also the third, so. . .). In any case, it was one of the most pleasant interactions I’ve ever had with a home improvement house call. Lots of times, those guys kinda scold you when they come across some amateur work. You know, something like, “You put in this dry wall?” You answer meekly, “yeah?” And then they berate you on how the taping job is messy and you didn’t go all the way down to the floor did you? And you start lying.

I accompanied plumber dude into the workspace, pointing out the various problems and mentally taking notes on his work. At one point, when he was working on the showerhead, he said to me, “who put this teflon tape here?” I thought about blaming my brother, but I told the truth and said, “I did.” I readied myself for a little lecture on how the teflon tape was the cause of the whole problem, but instead, plumber dude said, “teflon tape rocks!” and went on working.

We saw Margie again today to sign insurance forms and whatnot. Her outfit was even more outrageous. Shoulda brought the camera. She was wearing some sort of neon turquoise, frilly dress — something you might see on a line dancer — and the same white high heels. While she was talking about liability and deductibles and collision, I counted 15 bears in her office.

It was a quick meeting; she told us at about 10:10, “Well, I’d like to make this quick for you guys, get you out of here before my 10:30. I told Phil to stay here cuz this guy just got out of prison. I looked him up and he was convicted on 34 counts. So I wanna get you out of here in case anything happens.”

By the way, I’m temporarily disabling comments cuz the poker biznitches are back. Use the “send us an email” link on the right for any wisecracks.

Yesterday, Eileen and I took a little bike ride around town. We went to the farmer’s market, down to the Brittingham boathouse, and then over to the Ruzicka’s. As we were biking from the boathouse by the Monona bay, we saw a guy standing behind the passenger-side door of his car. When we got closer, it was evident he was peeing on the ground.

I smiled at him since we had so obviously caught him in the act. He looked up at us and said, quite sincerely, “Scuse me.”

Weird. In Ecuador, the men didn’t apologize for public peeing, that’s for sure.