The new(ish) computer is working now, too, though I still haven't gotten email set up. There is also a new (and larger) monitor, which is going to take some getting used to. I haven't used it to look at my photos yet, as those are still trapped on the other computer, but the photos I have seen on the Internets are quite impressive. I must download the latest version of Irfanview so I'll have something to look at my own with, once I've rescued them from digital oblivion.
I did go look at YouTube videos for awhile, and because I was offline for several days, sparing my bandwidth, I indulged myself with some high definition versions. Very nice. The old computer was having trouble with videos, but now they run smoothly and without interruptions.
Oh, and I must remember to download a PDF viewer. And Winamp. And probably other stuff I can't recall offhand. Stuff I won't miss until I need it.
Something I need right now is dinner, as I've been dealing with the new machine all day and totally forgot to eat anything aside from a couple of granola bars around noon. Then television. I hope the TV screen doesn't seem too small after using this enormous thing all day.
Sunday Verse
Aunties
by Kevin Young
There's a way a woman
will not
relinquish
her pocketbook
even pulled
onstage, or called up
to the pulpit—
there's a way only
your Auntie can make it
taste right—
rice & gravy
is a meal
if my late Great Aunt
Toota makes it—
Aunts cook like
there's no tomorrow
& they're right.
Too hot
is how my Aunt Tuddie
peppers everything,
her name given
by my father, four, seeing
her smiling in her crib.
There's a barrel
full of rainwater
beside the house
that my infant father will fall
into, trying to see
himself—the bottom—
& there's his sister
Margie yanking him out
by his hair grown long
as superstition. Never mind
the flyswatter they chase you
round the house
& into the yard with
ready to whup the daylights
out of you—
that's only a threat—
Aunties will fix you
potato salad
& save
you some. Godmothers,
godsends,
Aunts smoke like
it's going out of style—
& it is—
make even gold
teeth look right, shining.
saying I'll be
John, with a sigh. Make way
out of no way—
keep they key
to the scale that weighed
the cotton, the cane
we raised more
than our share of—
If not them, then who
will win heaven?
holding tight
to their pocketbooks
at the pearly gates
just in case.
