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Dad funded another Christmas present for Mom (or maybe a birthday present- hers is 3 days after xmas) but needed us to do all the legwork. Her computer was old when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and was in serious need of an upgrade. So Eric managed to find a Dell refurb on eBay for $200 that's just about as fast and fancy as mine. He loaded XP on it (remote control access) and we drove it to her in lovely Bryan-College Station yesterday. We had a tasty meal at Las Cucos restaurant, which has excellent Mexican chow. I was eyeballing the stuffed and fried avocado thing but came to my senses and had pollo something-or-other which was chicken with mushrooms, onions, and this wonderful spicy creamy poblano sauce. Oh, it was good. And Eric said he thought he could replicate it fairly easily. Hot damn!
We went to her house and he began assembling it and installing all the games and stuff that she liked. She began chain smoking (which probably didn't help her old computer, actually) so I seized on an opportunity for us to go do something out of the house. She mentioned that I could get calendars (which I wanted since I didn't get any for xmas) at Half-Price Books, and I asked her to take me to the one in Bryan. It's a nice big new store, too. I was quite a little piglet. I picked up the following all for me me me:
Sierra Club calendar- lots of yummy nature pics
Zen gardens of America calendar- I usually can't stand pictures of nature if I can see man-made items- fence posts through the meadow, a boat on the beach. Blah. But oriental bridges and gates and so forth just don't seem to intrude like all that other stuff does.
Sun, Moon, and stars calendar- splashy primary watercolors of astronomical stuff. Amusingly inaccurate in that it tries to give astronomy factoids and fails.
4 of the 5 Tanya Huff vampire stories. Yay!
A big ol' illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead- kind of a coffee table book.
Another basic Wicca book. Despite the fact that I obviously know everything there is to know about Wicca, and the fact that the cover was horrible (the main color seemed to be pink) this lady had a very specific spin on her celebration/worship/teachings that was heavily based on astrology. She'd really put a lot of thought into it and had some discussion of the ages (as in, Age of Aquarius) that made me decide to get it, if nothing else than for ideas for approaches to take with Full Moon rituals. I still disagree with the Earth in the north thing, as well as swords representing Air. But these are minor quibbles considering most beginning Wiccan books only give passing mention to any astrology beyond waxing/waning Moons.
So after Eric set everything up we came back home. He tried out the remote access feature, and it worked like a charm- he was able to help her install a game that was giving her trouble, and said it was every tech worker's dream. He got sucked into a computer game and I moped for a little before going to bed. I seemed to have a lot of strange dreams that I don't remember, then came into work today. Of course since it was damp and rainy all last week, it has cleared off and become gorgeous and sunny now that I'm stuck inside. Bleh.
But I think I am getting better at sensing this turn of the Wheel energy... even though it has been all cold and ooky, and the days aren't noticeably longer, it just feels different. Anticipatory. I can almost see the land getting ready to roll into another season of growth. Even in Texas, when it stays green pretty much all year, there is definitely a difference.
We went to her house and he began assembling it and installing all the games and stuff that she liked. She began chain smoking (which probably didn't help her old computer, actually) so I seized on an opportunity for us to go do something out of the house. She mentioned that I could get calendars (which I wanted since I didn't get any for xmas) at Half-Price Books, and I asked her to take me to the one in Bryan. It's a nice big new store, too. I was quite a little piglet. I picked up the following all for me me me:
Sierra Club calendar- lots of yummy nature pics
Zen gardens of America calendar- I usually can't stand pictures of nature if I can see man-made items- fence posts through the meadow, a boat on the beach. Blah. But oriental bridges and gates and so forth just don't seem to intrude like all that other stuff does.
Sun, Moon, and stars calendar- splashy primary watercolors of astronomical stuff. Amusingly inaccurate in that it tries to give astronomy factoids and fails.
4 of the 5 Tanya Huff vampire stories. Yay!
A big ol' illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead- kind of a coffee table book.
Another basic Wicca book. Despite the fact that I obviously know everything there is to know about Wicca, and the fact that the cover was horrible (the main color seemed to be pink) this lady had a very specific spin on her celebration/worship/teachings that was heavily based on astrology. She'd really put a lot of thought into it and had some discussion of the ages (as in, Age of Aquarius) that made me decide to get it, if nothing else than for ideas for approaches to take with Full Moon rituals. I still disagree with the Earth in the north thing, as well as swords representing Air. But these are minor quibbles considering most beginning Wiccan books only give passing mention to any astrology beyond waxing/waning Moons.
So after Eric set everything up we came back home. He tried out the remote access feature, and it worked like a charm- he was able to help her install a game that was giving her trouble, and said it was every tech worker's dream. He got sucked into a computer game and I moped for a little before going to bed. I seemed to have a lot of strange dreams that I don't remember, then came into work today. Of course since it was damp and rainy all last week, it has cleared off and become gorgeous and sunny now that I'm stuck inside. Bleh.
But I think I am getting better at sensing this turn of the Wheel energy... even though it has been all cold and ooky, and the days aren't noticeably longer, it just feels different. Anticipatory. I can almost see the land getting ready to roll into another season of growth. Even in Texas, when it stays green pretty much all year, there is definitely a difference.
