I've Lost My Memory - And My Mind!

Last Edit October 8, 1999

My son, ever needing NEW things, and being crabby as _____ lately, has been nagging.
"Where's my G4?" he mumbles between demands for food and grabbing the remote control. I hate that!
Like, "What have you done for me lately?"
The trip to Toronto fading fast as he learns how to snag my phone line and get on to play computer games over the web.
I wouldn't mind being nagged if he was 1) running the C compiler I went through hoops to get him or 2) doing other schoolwork.
No such luck.
I believe the need for speed is driven by the need for gaming speed.
Never mind that those 1104 photos from the Romantic Times Coonvention in Toronto remain to be cataloged. (Now that the Index prints are back in my hands.)
Never mind that I am about to give birth to a book (Jettison) and I need MY G4!
No.
It is HIS that is important.
So, I called the computer store.
They had his.
It came in---- wait for it--- a mere TWO HOURS ago. And they hadn't called me yet? Oh no! Theses first ones? One is for me! OR specifically, for my crabby son!
I tell them to get it ready. I'll be there after work. (That thing I do.)
A few hours later, they call me.
Oooops.
Seems that, when I took the G3 back, that beautiful machine we had all of 24 hours, the extra RAM I had purchased was removed and the little tiny circuit boards (DIMM boards) handed back to me. To keep.
And now we need to know where they are!
What! Moi?
At the time they forced these little things into my hand I had told them, "Don't give that to me. I will lose it!"
They had insisted.
Well, I've lost it.
And they wish that they had kept them.
Next time, listen to a mother!
My mind is blank. These little guys are misplaced somewhere in the morass that is my living room.
I have no memory of handling these things.
Did I put them in a safe place?
In the chaos of packing, did I misplace them?
I know I brought the receipt for the fan club business cards into work, copied it, made a sheet of corrections for it, and promptly LOST EVERYTHING.
I've been looking for two days. Still am.
That is a binder-clipped 8.5x11 set of papers.
This is a poor little lost RAM - actually two DIMMs. Tiny things.
Egad.
I go pick up my crabby son shortly.
I will have to tell him about the delay .
"Find it! And we can go get your toy!"
I just look forward to doing that!
It's the end of the week.
He's tired.
He's a teenager.
He's male.
He can be so mature - but not to his mother.
You see, I am in the "Your son is eighteen so you are an idiot" stage of his development.
Been here before.
The concept of a dorm room is appealing. That's why they invented them.
Meanwhile, my mind is a blank, and I am trying hard to live up to his expectations of me.
Somewhere, hopefully not in a discarded box, piled in the driveway and waiting for pick-up, lies a wrapped up RAM looking for a home.
I will not replace them.
It costs several hundred dollars.
I do not replace lost items.
House rule.
I remind myself. Firmly.

On finally getting home, I tore around the rooms. Unaided. (You really didn't think he would help, did you?)
All of them.
Top of books. I keep things there. Like the photo of Troy. Fabio pictures. Books I wrote.
Stuffed in shelves. I stick things there to keep them away from cats.
And kids.
Piles and piles.
My bedroom dresser.
Where I keep social security numbers and birth certificates. Other urgent stuff. My bras lay on the floor. Of course. Where else would they be? The G3 notebook sleeps with my slips!
My bookshelves - where I have the new software. And all the Fabio books.
No joy.
The table - buried in the monthly deluge of junk mail and the detritus of the sewing rampage prior to Romantic Times' fling. Properly stirred by curious cats.
The TV behind the weight machine. Another location for collection.
Where we opened things I bought at the same time and set them up for the trip. Printer. Alarm.
Still no joy.
And then the computer table - the main one holding the 3400C notebook which is pretending to be a basestation at the moment (scanner, monitor, ORB, etc hanging off of it).
I see tons of photos. Scads of business cards. No little lost RAMs.
Last resort.
With fear and trembling, and after fortifying myself with a double decaf mocha, I open the dreaded tax drawer.
That lateral file drawer where I put all receipts. ALL receipts.
I carefully rummage. Tax time for 1998 is drawing to a close (really) and 1999 looms large. So this drawer is FULL - 12 months worth of stuff. Scrambled. Because I stored the Orb there while we were gone. Divide and conquer.
I saw a ComputerWare receipt in there a few days ago when I breached these papers looking for something else. I know I did.
It only took a few minutes. Eureka!
Not only is there a receipt - but the receipt is merrily wrapped around the two little RAM PCB cards.
Sigh! Of Relief.
I called the store - told them we were on. I yelled at my kid (his room is a ways away from the phone) - so he could stop sulking.
Saturday, tomorrow, bright and early, we will stroll down to the store and pick up the G4 450MHz and 20GB drive. It will have about 350MB RAM. Fast enough.
Now, maybe, I can have another cup of coffee and relax. It's Friday and it's been a long week.

Oh we got the G4 all right. But not before we hit a Ritz-Blitz - and $500 off the body of the new Nikon APS system that takes the lenses that he just got to go to Toronto.
And I have to have one too. A camera.
Time for the boy to go back to work! (He starts Staurday.)
I'm broke! (He's paying for his own.)
You see, we are already planning for Houston. Before Toronto has faded. He wants to be the photographer again. As long as I keep my distance. Give him his own room. Etc.
I'm planning on being a recently published author. So maybe.
Momentum.Got to keep it.
My stock broker just laughs and says "10 9 8 7 6 ....."
Duck and cover.
I've known him too long!
You see, his mother self-publishes - children's books. I'd chatted to his father about this before I went to Toronto.
The seeds had been sewn.
The conspiracy looms large.
His father said that I knew what I was doing.
Too many people keep telling me that!
My own G4 is due in six weeks. 500MHz. 100bit bus. Velocity engine. Tricked out because it is the showcase machine. I can't wait.
I may become crabby too. A 21" monitor (big sucker) and a 27GB drive. Drool.
Notice how I fit right into Silicon Valley!
I need to publish - just so I can justify my new toys.
I will have photos from the photo shoot.
I have Thor art on the way. (Got the poster already.)
Planning that cookbook. "Time bombs in the Kitchen".
Rounding up my novels. All in one place!.
I'm still not sure what I am doing - but it will come to me.
It usually does.