While I toiled away doing my usual desk-based, computer-based thing, Angela cleaned the downstairs completely. To my mind, this made up for all the crap and and aggravation that Shira the Dog has sent my way.

My mother's computer had the same corrupted boot drive problem it had last time she had problems, but fortunately my idea of partitioning the hard drive had preserved most of the data; only the System Folder was lost. The partition containing the System Folder (named "Space") needed to be reformatted, but this was not an easy thing to pull off. When a volume cannot be mounted by the Finder, it cannot be formatted either, and there is no software that I know of that can format an unmounted partition. The solution was to run Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (I have an old pirated copy) and to run Norton Utilities just long enough to have the partition "try" to mount. Just as the Finder began complaining that such a mount is impossible, I typed "erase Space" in MPW. That did the trick. Then I restored as much System Folder as I had time for. Despite the relatively serious nature of this particular crash, the computer had remained fully operational, though my mother's email collection was entirely lost.

Since I've been so tied up in my own projects, my Dad has been doing a little of his own typing lately. He says he can type a few pages of manuscript per day using his rudimentary hunt and peck typing method. That might sound slow to you, but I'm impressed. My Dad is such a technophobe, I have difficulty imagining him being able to launch a word processor, format text, and save to a consistent location, but apparently he's mastered all that stuff. And the more he types, the more his typing will improve. I know; I used to type extremely slowly. My (now admittedly advanced) hunt and peck typing proceeds at a fairly brisk rate. I use four or five fingers: my left, middle and ring fingers, my right forefinger, ring finger and thumb. I have to peek now and then, but that's no big deal when I'm composing directly out of my mind. And typing this way seems to avert things like carpal tunnel syndrome.

Then the weird part of the conversation happened; I was actually discussing "relationships" with my father. I said I have a great deal of difficulty maintaining relationships because of my intense need to be alone, undistracted. I said that I hate having to go through the motions of satisfying my obligations to be "with" someone. My Dad said that his relationship with Hoagie was facilitated significantly by the fact that they are both independent, have separate interests, and could find times and places to be away from each other to pursue their own interests without distracting one another. It seems to work for them; they know when to leave each other alone, although my Dad's recent uptick in computer use is causing him to interfere a bit excessively in my mother's life. Perhaps I need to get him his own machine.

While I was dicking with my mother's Mac, I had her playing games on my new laptop. That kept her out of my hair. Perhaps I should give my Dad a laptop; he seemed sort of intrigued with its small size and obvious power.

My redneck friend Josh Furr dropped off a bunch of old cellular phone equipment for me to play with. Among the things is a working lead-acid battery that I can perhaps modify to power a laptop.

Today was my mother's 61st birthday, but of course she had to remind me.