One of the advantages of working from home via a laptop is that you can actually work anywhere you can get an internet connection or, in my case, a Sprint Broadband connection. And even though Sarah lives in the deepest, darkest part of Small Town South of Richmond (actually, she’s in a valley, which is why she gets crappy cell signals), the Sprint card works, albeit slowly, from her home.
So when she asked if I could meet the kids when they got home at four today while she took Oldest Boy to the orthodontist and Larry was traveling, I said yes, warned my coworkers that I’d be on the road at certain times, and then waited for the bus to show. While I was waiting, the local buzzard community decided to show up, a few at a time, until there were about twenty of them circling the house across the street from the bus stop. When the bus pulled up, Rebecca got off first and said, surprised, “What are you doing here?” (Sarah had not bothered to inform the children, as I told her that my slipping out in the afternoon depended on how busy I was today.) I explained, ending with “So I’m watching you for a while, if you don’t mind,” and got a “Yay!” from the twins. Inside the house to set up my computer on the kitchen table, and then to give the children their snack. Nate got home a few minutes later. Everyone got double snack, and yes, I did stop Miss Rebecca from getting two helpings of ice cream. That’s a Max thing, because his CF keeps him at a low weight and he is encouraged to eat high-fat snacks. She probably thought I wasn’t up on the snack rules of the G. household. Her mistake.
While I finished working on a high-priority part of our website, the kids played, drew, practiced piano, and did what kids do when they get home from school. I had to suffer through an excruciatingly slow Sprint card (two bars! Twenty-five seconds to upload a 3k file!) while working, which got me to think back to the days of 1200 baud modems. (Yes, I go that far back, but I entered the world of BBSes after 300 baud was nearly extinct.) That’s what it felt like today, 300 baud. Like walking through molasses.
I’m back on my wireless router and cable modem connection, and extremely happy I don’t have to work from Sarah’s too often. But if this keeps up, I may have to push them to get a wireless router for the occasions when people with laptops visit and need bandwidth. It’s either that, or move out of the valley, and I’m thinking wireless is the better option.
Max told me he’s packing tonight for their overnight stay with me this weekend. Well, I bought waffle mix last night, so I guess we’re both on the same wavelength. Ooh. That reminds me, time to find the waffle iron. I think there’s still a box of kitchen items that I didn’t unpack, because I use them so rarely. The waffle iron’s in it.
This is going to be an interesting weekend.
Ask Jack or Jameel for a waffle iron.
Please give us more pictures of Max with Tig! (And Gracie, too!)
That’s much easier said than done. Jake is twelve, and it was just him and me last weekend. I’m going to have seven-year-old twins, who tend to be a lot louder than a 12-year-old boy. I suspect we won’t see Gracie at all, and Tig pictures will depend on whether he likes the guest room enough to risk being in the company of two loud children, who will no doubt be giggling furiously while he jumps on the bed.