I'm proud to say that I'm writing this post from my laptop. She's not running on all of her memory, but she's plugging along. It was a harrowing day with Dell yesterday and I've just barely recovered from the trauma. Mommy needs a cocktail.

As promised by Dell customer service, the Dell guy came out and replaced my motherboard yesterday afternoon. It booted up fine (or so I thought) and I breathed a sigh of relief. There it was, my desktop with the forty million icons all over it. It truly was a thing of beauty.

I quickly rushed the Dell guy out the door so I could pet and coo over my little buddy. As soon as he was out the door, I carefully caressed the mouse. Nothing. My heart stopped cold. I wiggled and wiggled that mouse for all it was worth. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

"Ok, I'll just reboot", I thought. It didn't even get to the desktop this time. It froze while trying to load Windows.

"Ohhhhh Kayyyyy, let's try booting in safe mode", I said outloud. I hoped that my little buddy would hear all of the trouble I was going through to get her little heart started. Again, it froze up.

Just for good measure, I tried to reboot it again in safe mode. It froze up in the exact same spot. One of the drivers wouldn't load.

I dialed the number to Dell and proceeded to wait for 20 minutes before customer service finally picked up. It was a guy named Alexander who had a headset with a problem and a heavy Russian accent. A recipe for a migraine.

I told him what had happened, mentioning where exactly it was freezing up. He said, "Do you mind if we reformat your hard drive?" Whhhaaaaattttt? He asked me if I backed up, and I replied "of course". Big fat lie. I haven't backed up in like three months. He then tried to get me to reformat my hard drive again. I wouldn't bite.

I was on the phone for just over two hours with Alexander. I think it might of been his first day. Really. There were several times that I wanted to seriously beat the living crap out of him. Mostly it was when I heard him say "interesting...." after telling him what happened when I'd try out another one of his theories.

Finally, at the end of this two hour marathon, he said, "Let's try one last thing". Wouldn't you know it, that 'one last thing' was the winner. One of my memory cards was bad. It's on the way in the mail.

Several things made me believe it was his first day, but I think the last conversation we had confirmed it. He unsuccesfully tried to transfer me to their quality control department. When he couldn't figure it out, he asked me if I would call back and when a customer service rep answered I was to tell them to transfer me to their quality control department. I told him that there was NO way I was going to be on hold for another 20 minutes. He checked with his supervisor and I was let off the hook.

As soon as I got off the phone with Alexander, I backed up every stinking thing on my computer. That, and checked in the mirror for cauliflower ear.

Someone that I am privileged to call my friend shared with me today that she has cancer. I don't think anyone deserves this, but she especially doesn't deserve this.

She's had many struggles and quite a hard road over the past years.

..and then this.

According to my server reports, I have an average of 550-700 unique readers to my site each day, depending on whether it's a weekend or weekday. I am asking those that visit my site to please send healing thoughts toward my friend. Some might call it prayer. It doesn't matter that you don't know who she is; God or the Universe, or whatever your belief system is, will ensure that those thoughts are directed toward her. This, I know to be true.

(((((((Friend)))))), even if you don't know it, my thoughts and love are with you.

(in my best Scarlett O'Hara voice) ....As God is my witness, I shall never get lost again.....

Anyone who has had the opportunity to drive around with me knows that I claim the award for having the worst sense of direction on the planet. Seriously. Argue all you want, I'll win.

I was first made aware of my disability when I was in driver's education in high school. My driver's ed teacher used to get a kick out of having me drive a few blocks, make a couple of turns then tell me to find my way back to the school. Yeah, he was fun like that. Nine out of ten times, I couldn't find my way back.

All of my family and friends know better than to ask me if they should go "right or left" when they're unsure of where they're at. Sometimes they forget, and after asking me they chuckle and say, "oh yeah- I forgot who I'm asking". Nice.

People have given me compasses for gifts. I have a compass in my car, but it does me no good. N-S-E-W is meaningless to me.

A couple of months ago, hubby and I were at a party at a house located about 15 minutes from our house. I wasn't feeling well, so I left early and told hubby to call me when he was ready to come home. BJ knows how I am, so gave me what he thought were very good directions on how to get home. I got lost immediately. I am NOT lying when I tell you that it took me 2.5 hours to find my way home. I was seriously driving among farms and farm animals and finally figured out that if I followed a volcanic evacuation route sign, surely that would get me to a main road. Eventually it did. Eventually.

Well, I might as well go on with my sad story since I've sucked you in this far... It was also raining hard that night. When I finally got to the house 2.5 hours later, I discovered that I didn't have any house keys. So, there I was not feeling well, in the dark, in the rain, and crying because I couldn't get in the house. The windows are up really high, so I had to get a ladder from the garage and climb up about 5 feet to check all the windows to find one that wasn't locked. Thankfully, there was an unlocked window and I was able to climb in it.

Yeah, that night really sucked.

Really, I'm an intelligent person. The part of my brain that recognizes directions just doesn't fire on all cylinders for some reason. BJ is quite used to hearing these words, "honey, I'm lost".

So, today hubby got me this.

I guess this means that he's not planning on getting rid of me any time soon, because now I'll always be able to find my way home.

First of all, someone either give me one of these or 10,000 of these . Thank you.

Last night hubby and I went to a New Years Eve party with his friends. His friends are single guys, mostly in their early 30's. Let's just say, RisibleGirl does NOT fit in with this crowd. Don't get me wrong, I really like his friends but they have different life experiences and they're well, young guys. It's hard to find topics of conversation that we can all relate to. Or so I thought...

Somehow we got on the topic of cleaning habits. BJ commented on how he hasn't washed maybe 10 dishes since we got married. He says that I never give him a chance. Then one of his friends chimed in with the fact that I swoop in and pick up the dishes after everyone finishes eating and immediately start in on cleaning the kitchen. He poked fun at me about not being able to relax unless the kitchen is clean.

Well, yeah. And this is a bad thing?

So, then it became a game of bragging rights. Everyone started piping on on the neurotic cleanliness habits of the women in their lives. By the way, none of these women were there to defend themselves except me. One of the guys said that the first night his girlfriend stayed over, he caught her cleaning the toothpaste that was gunked up around the toothpaste lid. They all laughed and added more stories of their own.

It was kind of funny to sit back and listen to how these guys feel about the neatniks in their lives. Although they were all making fun, it was obvious that they were stepping all over themselves to get a chance to brag.

Apparently I crossed some weird line when I mentioned how I've been accused in the past of ironing my bath towels because they're always so straight and neat. That seemed to stop the room cold. You could almost hear the crickets chirping in the background. Then one of the guys said, "That's just sick".

Huh? Whaaaaat? Wait a minute, I thought we were all bonding. Thankfully BJ came to my rescue and said, "She said ACCUSED. She doesn't really iron the towels." Everyone seemed to relax after that.

Thanks, BJ, for saving my reputation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get my toothbrush and scrub some grout.

Yeah, I know, I claim to be Risible Girl yet I act more like mushy-reflection girl. That's why this blog is called MOSTLY risible. While on the 'risible' topic, does everyone here know what risible means? There. Now you do.

It's that time of year, the time where people typically look back on their lives and reflect. Some make resolutions (yeah, we'll get to that maybe tomorrow), some don't. I wasn't going to write one of those reflective New Years Eve posts, but something hit me today like a ton of bricks.

I don't often buy People magazine, but I was at the store today shopping for the grazing festival that was to take place at our pad. It included boys, video games and football. Since my laptop has a fried motherboard, I despise football, and I don't like video golf, I thought I'd better find some sort of mind numbing activity to occupy my time. There it was. People, the best and worst of 2004. Perfect!

It was all fun and games until I got to the article, "Honoring the Fallen". It started, "Since the war in Iraq began, 1,293 U.S. soldiers have given their lives. Here, in the order of their passing, are the names of 832 brave men and women who died in the line of duty in the past year." And so went the list. The name and age of all of the fallen soldiers this year. Most of them just babies. Babies younger than my two sons.

Seeing that list sucked the breath right out of me. I turned the page. Two more pages full of names in tiny little letters. It was all so, so stark. I'm not sure if that is the proper word, but it was like a slap in the face. It brought me to tears to think about these boys, these babies; and to think about their families. Families who were spending the holidays without them.

I thought about my oldest son and his friends. They were all very angry after 9/11. Some were talking about joining the army. I have to be honest, that very idea scared the hell out of me. I am so thankful for the brave men and women who have served our country, and I am very proud to say that my brother is included in that honorable group. However, it devastated me to think of my son joining those ranks. My son didn't join. But some of his friends did. They went in knowing what they were up against. Those are very brave young men.

Then there were the boys who joined the reserves prior to 9/11. They joined so they could make a little extra money, or get help with college tuition, not even knowing what they were getting themselves in to. They were called to duty, and it scared them. It scared me. I can't imagine how it worried their families. I have to wonder how many of those boys on that long list of names fell into this category. It just makes me so, so very sad.

It all brings everything into perspective. I don't think that I'm necessarily someone that needs perspective, because I'm one of those polly-anna type of people who look around and count all of my blessings on nearly a daily basis. It hasn't always been like this, meaning there was a time that I didn't feel so lucky. I really wasn't very lucky and this enables me to look back over my life, how it was, and compare it to how life is now. It is very easy for me to see how blessed I am.

My boys are happy, healthy..... and alive. I am married to a wonderful man who is a partner in every way. I enjoy my job tremendously, and we both make enough money that we are never in need. I have wonderful friends and truly wonderful family; old and new.

This year I finally got a diagnosis for the liver problems that have been plaguing me since 1986. Believe it or not, I consider that a blessing as well. Because now I'm being monitored a lot closer, which means that I am more likely to receive a liver transplant in time. The whole thing is much less scary to me now.

So, even though it wasn't my plan to leave this year on a reflective note, I did.

While reflecting, I'm so happy for the new friends I've made through my new hobby; my blog. I've been enriched reading about your lives and thoughts. Oftentimes very thought provoking. Thank you for sharing yourselves with me.

I wish everyone a safe and healthy 2005, and for me, I am looking forward to getting my little buddy back. (that's my laptop... whimper...)