Mr. Robert was just here, for around 3 hours. After he left, we asked him ( well, The Father asked him ) ‘What do we owe you ? ‘ He replied ‘Nothing’. Of course, we pressed money into his hand, even though his conclusion after all of these hours was that my computer has a mind of it’s own ( think : HAL, 2001).

The conversion from cable ( boo-hiss) to ASDL is not going smoothly, I can only open certain bookmarks ( tell me, how can my ‘baby sites’ be… offensive in any way ? Is HAL simply weary of all my yammering on and on about the offspring ?). And Mr. Robert does not think much of Firebird ( ‘inferior software’, nor of Kazaa, although I never said that I used Kazaa- oh well, play the stupid housewife and that is indeed what people will see you as…)

But he is going to call Wanadoo tomorrow- it seems that the problem ( this one) lies within the KPN modem.

I almost might qualify to sing the modern day version of the blues, if I were to sing a ballad about HAL and I.

I’m moving into that sludgy place that I go to before The Father has a big trip. I have no idea why this happens, as the minute that he is gone, I snap out of it, make the best of things, all but whistle while I work.

But for now, perhaps I should just go and play some Mahler, cheer myself up.

I’m sure that this is entirely wrong, but by simply changing the .asp to .html, all of the files that I have been banging my head over work. For of course, they say, when one puts up a FrontPage site, one must have a … a… place that has all of those fool extensions installed. Well, we don’t and I refuse to have them installed.

But as I looked over the code, trying to see what made things bounce and jump around, all I could see was some JavaScript, nothing that smacked me in the face and said ‘I am ASP !’.

And, boy, does FireBird hate that site- yukkus indeed.

Oh well, it only has to work for a few weeks.

And it is up and it works. In IE, at least.

One of the nicest things about having a third child is that you finally know- and I mean, really know -that there is no such animal as the perfect Mother. We all do what we can.

With the first born, I basically consulted a small library of books every time she burped, sneezed or farted. And as she grew older, I found myself looking for those hidden, psychological clues that could tell others how I was doing as a mother. One example of this were her little drawings : when she drew a picture of herself, was she smiling or sad-faced ? When she drew a picture of me, did I appear bland or as a harridan from hell ?

The other thing which I saw as a clue to what sort of mother I was, was how she treated her baby dolls- not the Barbie’s, but the ones with bald heads and fat bellies. I was convinced that how she treated those dolls was a reflection of how she experienced my treatment of her. Hard to believe that I was 35 when I had her, eh ?

A few days ago, The Baby found one of The Girl’s old baby dolls, Baby Chou-Chou. This is one of those dolls that makes all of these noises and comes with a 42 page instruction booklet describing her various sounds and how one should react to them ( read : how to shut Chou-Chou up). This booklet disappeared about the same time as the wrapping paper that covered the doll’s box.

Last Saturday, as I was making dinner, The Boy and The Baby were playing with Chou-Chou, and that doll started crying, just went on and on and on, leaving me thinking : just like a real baby. After a while, it really began to get on my nerves so I went over to the couches where the kids were playing and tried to shut Chou-Chou up. Even without the booklet, I figured that this couldn’t be tough, after all, I had soothed a fair share of babies in my lifetime, knew the standards, so to say. So I held the doll to my shoulder and gently patted her back. Wah ! I tried rocking her, feeding her, even the trick Bucky showed me for colicky babies. Nada. I suggested that we just turn her off, this was getting on my nerves.

Then The Boy suggested that he try something that he had seen on television, something Homer had once done. With deep misgivings, I said that I didn’t think that anything that Homer Simpson did to a baby would help, but sure enough, The Boy picked up the doll, gave her one of those terrible bouncing-brain shakes and the doll started laughing.

For a brief moment, I was horrified, afraid that The Baby might treat a doll at school in such a fashion, in front of her teacher !

And then I realized what a fool I was.

I have the hounds of hell breathing down my neck with deadlines and the easiest- albeit temporary- solution for one problem is to stick that stinking FrontPage site up for a few weeks.

I hate a Monday which begins with me doing Google searches on ASP files.

I’m so stinking ignorant.

I’m wasting this morning trying to arrange a free ‘parking place’ for a Dutch domain name. I have found out that it is one-two-three simple ( from the place I get this space) to park it here. That’s on the American side.

Now on the Dutch side, I have to do the following :

1. U zegt de diensten bij uw huidige deelnemer (provider) op, op de door de deelnemer voorgeschreven wijze;
2. U dient bij uw nieuwe deelnemer een ondertekend exemplaar van het “Formulier voor verhuizing” zoals door SIDN voorgeschreven in (u vindt dit formulier op de SIDN-website;
3. U dient aan de nieuwe deelnemer een ondertekend .nl-registratiecontract te verstrekken. De verhuizing van een .nl-domeinnaam wordt namelijk beschouwd als een nieuwe registratie van de betreffende domeinnaam.

Now, I have a lot of trouble reading and understanding bureaucratic Dutch, but it seems I have to print off and send a bunch of papers- which, of course, are in Dutch- to the poor technical people in America, they have to fill them in as well and return them.

I think.

What a pile of horse shit.

I suppose that every family has it’s own ‘keeper of the flame’, that one person who guards the family history, the fading photos, the tattered scrapbooks. In my family, that is me. I have it all, and am still fussing about, trying to get the studio portrait taken of Frenchy’s family when she about 14, before the family went to hell in a hand basket, so to say, before old pops drank draino , or something equally repugnant. But it’s a nice, big portrait, about a yard wide and two feet high, in sepia tones with pinks added here and there. And it means nothing to anyone left living in this world except me. I still want that portrait.

My baby group wants us to send in pictures of ourselves as four year olds- you know, what I looked like at The Baby’s age. This evening, I made a half-hearted attempt to find a picture of myself. I have all the family photos, and as the first born, my, did Daddy love snapping and then developing pictures of me. But for all that I have all of the family albums, for all that everyone knows that I will care for them, not let them end up in bins at flea markets, I hate looking at all of those photos.

For , you see, no matter what I know now, I had a perfect childhood. I was spoiled rotten, had everything my heart desired and always knew that my home was where my heart was- with my family. I never threatened to move out, never waited with baited breath for my 18 th birthday to roll around- no, I always just wanted to be with the people I grew up with.

And so I hate those family photos, those ones showing the family that died the same day that my Mother did, so very long ago. The cruelest thing about her death was that I can no longer look at our family photos. They contain no memories of happiness, only the awareness of loss.

The other day, I needed another book to read. So, I went up to the lovely bookcases that Mr.Jo made for me in the hallway ( the gate – by the way- doesn’t bother me at all anymore) and picked something out to read.

Later on in the evening, as I settled down to read, a handful of photographs- snapshots- fluttered out of the book. This was one of them.

After a certain amount of detective work and after a certain amount of years, my father was able to find the home that his grandfather- Michael- left behind when he took off for America. And this is a picture of it ( alway makes me think of Dad saying ‘…descended from Kings…’).

And it’s one of those things that I have no idea what to do with, in any way.

( I have been listening to old music all day long. I was going to put a picture up, chat about that, but the last time Mr.Robert cleaned out C, he cleaned out the…. stuff that makes the scanner work. Yesterday, after I told him that he had taken the scanner software with him, he said, oh, no problem. Just go to HP and download the software you need. I started the download this morning. It seems that this will take at least 22 hours.

So I shall put the photo up later. Tomorrow, perhaps. For now, I’m listening to old music. And other things.)

The Father had this afternoon off. Actually, he is supposed to have every other Friday off, but he never takes the full day. Oh well, that’s his business.

He decided that this afternoon he would open the box that KPN sent us and install the new ASDL/ ISDN thing. I wished him luck and then went up to take a nap. Oddly enough, whenever I know that The Father is going to be home for the afternoon, I have an irresistible urge to nap.

He woke me up at 4. How’d the modem thing go ? , I asked, being polite. It’s all installed, all the lights are blinking correctly through the whole system . Can you connect to the Internet, I asked. No, he said and that is why he was just waiting for me to wake up.

I wake up poorly. I went to my little room of my own and he handed me how-to booklet after how-to booklet. Well, he said, with a let’s-wash-some-pigs look in his eyes, what do we do now. ‘Call Mr.Robert, the computer whiz, throw euro bills at his feet and beg him to come over and do this.’

I was told that I have a bad attitude.

At 5.45, The Father called Mr.Robert, the computer whiz, threw euro bills at his feet and begged him to come over and do this.

Mr. Robert is coming on Sunday afternoon.

A fine lad.