Even though I didn’t go to bed until midnight, I got up at 4:30 planning to attack articles about free term life insurance rates with a zest.

Okay, not with a zest. But I did get up.

Only to have a MacBook crash before 5 a.m. Mondays are bad enough in and of themselves, but this one just had to go be an over achiever.

Something locked up while I was in the browser and the machine shut down, but would not finish the boot sequence. It just kept telling me to do another restart.

I dragged out the netbook so I could get to a search engine for information.

I reset the PRAM with a multi-finger keyboard salute.

I tried to boot in safe mode.

I opened the back and pulled the memory sticks, re-starting each time.

Nada.

This led to a thirty-minute excavation in my former office closet to locate the original disks so I could boot from a CD.

That finally worked and I was able to do some hasty emergency file transfers.

When the moment of truth arrived, I ejected the CD, rebooted, and wonder of wonders the system came up. In fact, I’m writing on the Mac at the moment, but in light of the screen flickering since October, I am prepared for almost anything to happen.

My current plan involves riding this ole horse until she goes down in the dust and I have to pull out my 30/30 (recognizing that could be 5 minutes from now.) If all goes well, an item from the garage will sell this week that will cover the cost of an “economical” Windows laptop, thus dashing any dreams I might have had of an iPad.

Oh yeah. It’s Monday alright.

With the amount of work I’ve managed to get done this weekend, I suppose if my laptop were about to give up the ghost it would have done it. As I’ve said before, I’m much happier when I have plenty to do and it’s been a godsend for the past couple of days because R. has a sore throat.

Well, what she really has is drainage making her throat sore. I know that’s uncomfortable, but you’d think we were in the midst of a cholera / tuberculosis / Black Plague / Spanish flu / anthrax event. (You know, Choleratuberculoplaguishrax. Dreadful disease.)

Yeah, she’s a little whiny.

After consulting a good sampling of online friends with and without husbands and children, gargling with salt water came out as the top remedy. R. would have none of it. She wanted “medicine.” She wanted something in a bottle for which money had been paid.

Okay, I dragged my butt to the grocery store and talked to the pharmacist. What did he say?

Gargle with salt water.

Sigh.

I bought some Chloraseptic anyway. I’ve never drenched a sheep, but I think spraying a sore throat remedy in a little old lady’s mouth because she won’t do it herself has to be close. It was either cherry or wintergreen and she hates minty medicines so I went with the cherry.

To hear her tell it, vilest crap ever concocted by the hand of man.

Now, the dolce de leche ice cream? That she’s eating by the bucket.

Anybody get the sense I’m not winning this one?

The day finally came. I used the “N” word.

No, not that “N” word.

I just flat outright told R., “No.”

She has grown increasingly jealous and petulant about my online life, especially as more and more Little Town people have come into that life via Facebook.

Yesterday I realized I had gone a whole week without seriously losing my temper. Annoyed, yes, but not fighting mad. I can’t even tell you the last time that has happened.

And I know exactly why. At least once a day, and usually much more often than that, I “talk” to somebody who knows what the Bloody Bucket is, who Red Smith was, and why the first weekend in August will always be “race meet.”

You’d think she’d be happy that I’m in a better mood, but instead, she’s jealous. Last night during supper my phone chirped. I’d been involved in a protracted three-way email conversation all afternoon. Granted, I probably shouldn’t have picked up my phone while we were eating, but I did.

R. lost it. I mean completely fricking lost it. Never mind that we had been having a very nice conversation, that I was paying attention to everything she said, or that I was replying to her last statement at the time I picked up the BlackBerry in such a way as to clearly indicate I was engaged in the conversation.

You may be able to shame a teenager for looking at a cell phone screen, but I am here to tell you it does not work on a 47-year-old woman. Especially when the woman cooked the supper on the table and would be doing the dishes in short order. I would never use my cellphone during a meal in public or with “company,” but in my own home? on my own time? My cave, my rules.

The gist of what R. said was that she wanted me to quit using the BlackBerry to communicate with people because she was being excluded. And I said, “No.”

Now, in all fairness, I also added that I was not neglecting her, proving that fact by repeating everything she’d said during the course of the meal. I also reminded her that I am who I am. I multi-task, very well. She knows that and in theory she knows me and this far into our friendship, don’t go trying to change me.

What I didn’t say was, don’t make me choose, because you may not like the outcome. If pressed, I will get up from the table, walk into the other room, do my thing and come back. It’ll make for more athletic meals than I enjoy, but I will do it.

I gave up my home for this woman. I gave up my then-business. I’ve compromised my personal freedom. Every one voluntarily, so I’m not bitching about that. But I won’t give up my friends, especially those from the Little Town, many of whom I’ve known my whole life. Not for her or anybody else.

Right now, the only way those people who are important to me can be a daily part of my life is over the Internet and via cell phone. To her credit, she realized quickly she had gone too far and the remainder of the evening was quiet. Tense, but quiet.

She has chosen to live as an isolated recluse, and by default I live that way to a large extent, but I have friends, good ones. If ever there was an “old woman, don’t go there” moment, we just had it.

Things have actually been going well since the Enchilada Peanut Butter Nutella debacle. I have a nice little pile of work sitting on my plate and have been getting up about 4:45 each day to whittle on that in relative peace.

R. is generally still up reading one of her endless murder mysteries. I dispense an herbal sleeping pill, she and Andy go to sleep, and Mike and I work. (Well, Mike supervises from the depths of the rumpled covers on the futon and I work.)

Knock on wood, R. and I have only had one real set to, which occurred last night. She wants to take a shower (and will pitch a wall-eyed hissy fit when we do tackle that chore), but has been complaining of a little sore throat. She’s sneezing her head off, so I know it’s sinus, but I haven’t been real keen on the idea of getting her hair wet since she won’t let me dry it.

While it may be an old wives’ tale that such things can lead to worse colds, in my experience, old wives are smart dames, so I’m not pushing my luck.

Of course, what really gets my goat is the way she starts coming up with “problems” and things she wants me to do right at bed time. There is also the “making crap up to be difficult” factor.

Yesterday I took a cup out of the cabinet only to hear, “Do NOT put that cup in front of me.”

Okay, R. has matching china coffee cups with flowers on them.

(Anybody shocked by that statement? Anybody?)

One cup looks exactly like the other. But wait for it, wait for it . . . there was a chip!

[Okay, one, two, three . . . collective gasp.]

Me? I drink from a five-year-old Christmas gimme cup, so you can imagine the enthusiasm with which I listened to a ten-minute recitation on the evils of chips. The sheer utter wrongness of chips. People, chips are gauche.

Every single time something like this surfaces, R. appears deeply puzzled that I have no freaking idea what she’s talking about. In eight years, eight bloody years, I have never one time heard the Unified Theory of Chipped China.

And you just wait, as soon as I start using the other, less elegant cups, I’ll hear, “Where are my china cups?” And that will be followed by, “Why can’t we buy new china cups that aren’t chipped?”

Me, I don’t know gauche from goats, but I’m suspecting the goats would be less trouble.

Do not ask me why I thought it was a good idea. I have no answer for you save that when you wrangle a little old lady 24/7 you ultimately cave in, give her what she wants, and call it calf rope.

I fixed chicken enchiladas for supper. B.R. called just as I finished mine, so I went to my bedroom to talk on the phone. While I was gone R. watched “Antiques Roadshow” and cleaned her plate, a fact that pleased me greatly and for which I made a point of thanking her.

Fifteen minutes later she said, “I’m starving to death. Would you please fix me a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich?”

I knew it wasn’t a good idea. Really, seriously, I knew. Don’t ask me why I did it. I have no good answer for you. As a friend on Facebook asked, “Were you going for some sort of inedible mole?” (Stick a little accent mark on that ‘e’ if you’re having a hard time deciphering that sentence.)

She dove into the sandwich with relish (thank God there was no actual pickle relish) and about half way through the second slice turned green. Bilious, luminous, glowing in the dark, barf-impending green.

“I think I’m getting sick,” she said, in one of the greatest statements of the obvious I’ve ever witnessed. She held out for fifteen minutes and . . . well . . . use your imagination . . . or maybe don’t. Your call.

She went to bed, or rather was poured into bed with a damp wash cloth on her forehead and I cleaned it up. (Bearing in mind this is not one of the caregiving tasks I handle well.)

In my defense, all I can say is that I never wanted a spouse and I never wanted kids. I’m slow on the uptake sometimes. But as caregiving failures go, this one was epic.

Most mornings you need Good Sam towing to haul my slumbering self into consciousness. This morning? Alarm set for 4:45 in anticipation of 15 minutes of snooze button slapping. Eyes popped open, wide awake, 4:30. My internal clock is going nuts in middle age.

When I flipped the light on, Mike looked at me like, “You are not serious?” I gave him his tummy rub / cuddle / ear kissing and he promptly settled down in the warm spot and went back to sleep with his paw over his eyes.

R., who was wide awake reading a murder mystery — shock of shocks — has now been given one of her herbal sleeping pills. Andy is curled up snoozing with her.

I have already been on Facebook, made it to the second cup of coffee, and am getting ready to start an article comparing CFLs to incandescent bulbs. This would be Monday, wouldn’t it?

I’ll probably be back later in the day unless I’m passed out unconscious in my chair drooling on myself.

There’s this scene in “YaYa Sisterhood” that to me always explained Vivi’s drinking. One kid throwing up, another producing by-product from the opposite direction, which she steps in. Everybody screaming at once.

I had my own version yesterday — just came in and put the groceries on the counter, R. starting in immediately wanting more coffee before I can even get my coat off, Andy losing his lunch on the foyer rug, canister of disinfectant wipes empty, BlackBerry flashing with messages.

Sometimes in the aftermath of a day like that it strikes me that if I’d ever had an inclination to take to the bottle, I’d already be a roaring drunk.

I swear to God if I said I was gonna lay down and die, R. would say, “Okay, do this and this and this for me first.” I know she can’t get around and I know that’s frustrating, but Lord God woman, let me take my coat off before you start shoving that coffee cup across the table!

That’s right. Shoving the cup to the edge of the table the way you would to signal a freaking waiter. Not, “May I have some more coffee?” Papa used to tease mother by tapping his cup with his spoon to indicate he wanted more hot tea. He did this to trigger the predictable and profane response. Of course, he always got his tea, but he made Mama laugh in the process.

Now, of course, you call R. on this cup-shoving routine and you get pouty-face protestations that she doesn’t “remember” to ask. If she can “remember” to shove the cup across the table she can “remember” to pair that with the question.

Grumble.

Just imagine what I could do with office furniture and duct tape.

Yes, there was a round two. You knew there would be. To address concerns about heat build-up (you know, paper being flammable and all) and to increase the light, I modified the . . . design. (And, as someone pointed out, ruined the free advertising for Tom Thumb.)

And my housemate was just happy as a clam. Watched TV all afternoon and evening, no glare complaints, no holding up greeting cards or magazines. I am just practical minded and lack just enough style to say leave the dang thing there. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The cats, however, are even more puzzled. At one point both of them were sitting in the middle of the table obviously discussing the matter. I have no doubt my mental capacity drew the short straw in that assessment!

As always, my friends are my best online backup when life gets crazy around here. While being supportive last evening, the Facebook crew was also understandably amused as the following illustration of “crazy” played out.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that R. intentionally does stuff just to drive me insane . . .

Well, actually, that’s exactly what I mean to suggest.

She has taken to watching TV either wearing her sunglasses or holding a magazine or greeting card up to the right side of her face. She insists there’s a glare on the television screen.

I’ve tried:

- moving the lamp
- turning the lamp off
- changing the size of the bulb
- moving the TV
- closing the blinds
- partially closing the blinds
- shifting her chair

Nada.

Now, I suppose I could just ignore the whole “shading the face” thing, but that’s amazingly hard in the vast panoply of other annoying habits R. has cultivated.

(We won’t go into using floss picks at the table or cleaning her hair brush and leaving the pile of hair beside her water glass.)

So yesterday, in a fit of frustration, I grabbed a paper sack, cut a round hole in the bottom, and plopped it over the lampshade. Voilà! She finally shut up about the glare.

The cats, however, would not shut up about the bag.

And, after about two hours of thinking about it, R. decided my creation was going to catch on fire and fairly wailed for me to take it down.

Oddly enough, by that point, I was actually kinda liking it. And I’m not throwing it away. I fully expect to put it right back in place this afternoon. Oh, I’ll eventually get a different lampshade, but I’m not going to run out and do it as a high-priority, special errand.

I offer this tale to you to remind you never to underestimate the ability of a little old lady to crank up the crazy factor. Just when you think they’ve gone as far as they can go, they will always take it up a notch.

While 5 a.m. may not be the best time of the day mentally to contemplate topics like instant comparisons of term insurance quotes, this is the second day I’ve been up with the chickens and cranking out work.

As I’m writing, it’s 7:12 a.m. and this is my fourth composition of the morning. Mike is snoozing on the as yet un-made and un-folded futon, and I’m finishing up my second cup of coffee and getting ready to make and fold said piece of furniture and get on the Bicycle Going Nowhere (for Day 802, my sidebar stats are out of date on my totals.)

Yesterday I awakened spontaneously at five, but I had such a productive day, I set the alarm for 4:45 this morning. I’m a snooze button kind of gal, so giving myself fifteen minutes to do that is never a bad idea. R. was awake, reading one of her endless murder mysteries, so I dispensed an herbal sleep aid and her light is now out.

Long-time readers will know I’m always in search of the schedule that works and constantly frustrated by the shifting nature of the “what works” quotient. Right now, doing a couple of hours worth of work and then taking a break for my exercise and morning news reading is appealing to me. I’m also trying to regain evening productivity with moderate success.

Last night I really pushed that by taking the MacBook into the kitchen. I honestly do not understand the adversarial relationship R. has with this machine. (While I haven’t “fixed” the screen flicker, it seems more stable after the new battery and if I keep the brightness down a couple of notches. Fingers crossed.)

The instant I sat the machine on the table, she bristled. I had a news item to write for a client that involved a lot of prices. I suck at typing numbers and wanted the larger screen and a flat surface to make sure I was getting the data transcribed correctly.

“Has that thing always been white?” she demanded.

“Well, technically yes, but it used to have a red cover on it,” I answered.

“Why did you take if off?”

“I’m having some problems with the screen flickering and I thought the cover was making the machine run too hot.”

That seemed to satisfy her, but she kept throwing hostile and suspicious glances at the laptop while I was typing. I had more writing that I could have done, but I finished the article and took the offending white box away. As soon as it was gone, her mood brightened.

So, that would seem to indicate the tiny and less offensive netbook is the “official” kitchen machine for now. I just have to figure out what I can best get accomplished on the smaller screen, which is usually drafting an article from notes or doing some research.

I find it really puzzling, however, that R. has such a negative reaction to the MacBook. You’d think the thing had bitten her at some point in time. It’s exactly the same kind of reaction she’s generally reserved for dogs, whom she initially fears.

Every single time we go to the Wookies she worries about their lovely Tag and every single time Tag proves herself to be sweet and gentle with R., obviously aware that R. has some sort of thorn in her paw.

While I know I shouldn’t waste my time looking for logic where none exists, I feel the strangest urge to sit the MacBook down on the table and say, “Now see, it’s wagging its tail at you. That’s a good MacBook. It won’t bite. Nice laptop. Friendly laptop.”

Maybe if I got it a collar and taught it to chew on stuffed hedgehogs like Tag does.

Sigh.