LONG WHINE - PART 2

After my adventure-filled day shopping as told in Long Whine - Part 1, we headed home, where I hoped to find peace for the rest of the day.  Alas, it was not to be.

The wireless on my router worked well to connect to the internet on my laptop when I was still served by my previous provider, but, after it was disconnected, I downloaded the router CD onto the laptop, and I was not able to access the internet.  What now?  I downloaded the CD again and still no connection.

In desperation, I called my son and told him what I'd done and asked what could have gone wrong.  He was puzzled and said the connection should have worked.  After thinking a bit, he asked me if the antenna button was turned on.  I did not know there was such a thing as an antenna button on the laptop, and I had no idea where it was.  He said I should look on the front of the laptop.  At first, I saw only a red light, but, when I looked closer, there was a small switch.  When I slid the switch to the right, the red light changed to blue, and I was able to connect.  What I've written sounds simpler and less time-consuming than the reality, which dragged on for a couple of stress-and-frustration-laden hours. 

In between failure and success with the computer, I took a break to arrange the curly willow branches I mentioned in my earlier post.  The branches were too tall for the vases and needed to be clipped.  Out came the wire cutters to cut a number of branches.  As some were too thick for the wire cutters, I had to saw them with a knife.  Nothing is ever as simple as expected, but, in the end, I was pleased with the minimalist effect.

Finally, I settled down with a glass of wine to test the computer connection, all the while fearing that, as luck would have it that day, I'd be thrown offline at any moment.  To my great relief the connection held.  Around 11:15 PM, I decided it was bedtime, so I shut down the computer, and, when I reached to plug in the laptop to charge the battery, I knocked over my half-full glass of red wine on the carpet.  Oy!  Not bedtime yet after all!

After blotting up all possible liquid with paper towels, I continued the clean-up with my ever-handy bottle of Resolve Carpet Cleaner, with not much hope that it would do the tough job of removing the red wine stain.  After much rubbing and scrubbing, I called it a night and finally went to bed.

The next morning, when I examined the area I could still see where the wine had spilled, so I rubbed and scrubbed again.  Later in the day, when the area had dried, I could not see stain marks, so I moved the chair and the magazine rack back into place.  I haven't looked closely again, because there's nothing more I can do if there are remnants of stain, except call in the professionals.
 
Grandpère's evening was no better.  When he drove to his meeting down the bayou, he went to the wrong house and got stuck in the mud in the driveway.  The owner of the house was kind enough to tow him out, but he was most embarrassed.

End of whine.  I don't know if  I feel better now that I've written about my woes, but it is done.

BREAKING THE RULES OF CIVILITY

Here's the book: Rules of Civility.  My friend, to whom I lend many books, insisted that I read her copy, because she liked it so much.  My books are always returned in the same condition they go out to her, even the old, yellowed paperback mysteries, which she is now reading, as she finds my choices of fiction not cheery enough.



One evening, as I read the very first book that I ever borrowed from my friend, I spilled half a glass of wine on it...my one and only glass of wine, I hasten to add, which I did not even get to finish.  I take care of  books, my own and especially those that belong to others, but the book is ruined, though not for reading, as I went on to finish the story.  I will buy another copy to return to my friend. 

 See?  The book is quite a mess.  The jacket came through the wine spill best of all.  From the front, except for a bit of stickiness, you'd never know the accident happened.  The inside is another story.

What about the contents of the book?  Spoiler alert!  I enjoyed it in a quick-read sort of way.  The author, Amor Towles, "is a principal at an investment firm in Manhattan", and this is his first novel.   He writes in the voice of the narrator, who is a young woman in her twenties throughout the book, except for fast-forwards in the beginning and end.

The real story begins in the late 1930s, with the young people crashing parties at grand mansions on Long Island, and my first thought was, "Ah, here we are in Gatsby land," and we were, but the author is not Fitzgerald.  Towles writes well enough, but, curiously to me, he often uses British spelling and expressions, which perhaps is the way people from the right families and the right schools and universities spoke and wrote in the 1930s.  The protagonist, Kate (Katya), who is from an immigrant family in Brooklyn, and did not attend the right schools, works her way up from the secretarial pool to a high-powered job at a glossy magazine and marries a man from the right family, schools, etc.  The reviewer at the New York Times, Liesl Schillinger, liked the book better than I did.  I once read a good many books of this sort, but time is short, and now when I read, I want to sink my teeth into something more solid.

And now off to order another copy of the book.