A shorter-than-usual eMo today, perhaps, although one never knows in advance. There's a reason: the same cat who sat on my newborn grandson last year and was exiled from Brooklyn to Italy as a consequence -- a felix culpa if ever there was one -- sat on my laptop a few days ago, and when he got up, the wireless connectivity was no more.
I called Hewlett Packard. A young lady from India answered my call.
"My cat sat on my laptop and now I can't connect wirelessly.". I went on to explain that my operating system was in Italian, so it might take me a little longer than was usual to follow her instructions. I speak bad Italian well, but slowly.
"Your cat sat on the keyboard and now it's in Italian?". I could hear the shock in her voice all the way from Bangalore. She'd never encountered this problem before, I'm pretty sure.
"No, no," I said, "It was in Italian before. It's just the wireless I'm calling about."
It wasn't long before I gave up on the call and decided to consult Roy, the genius across the street.
"He wants to know if the operating system has always been in Italian," his mother emailed later, and I explained.
So I'm writing the eMo on my phone. I've done this before, and it can take a while -- I can only use one finger, and the one I use is twice its normal size and bright purple, as a result of its being caught in the hinge of a folding chair, upon which I then sat. Yes, I sat on myself, which is no mean feat.
I am also writing it on a plane.
I dashed off an incoherent text message on it to a committee yesterday, one in which the motion of the train combined with a sprained pointer finger and an inability to recall the name of someone I've known for years to produce a short document that looked as though it had been typed by one of the higher primates other than the species to which I belong.
"Is Barbara all right?". somebody in the thread asked somebody else.
"She's under a lot of stress," somebody else answered.
"Are you aware that she's in this thread?"
"Oh, she won't mind. She'll appreciate the concern.". And I did. Once I'd stopped laughing.
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