Our patio kitty, Midnight, believes I have super human powers. It’s raining steadily this morning and the skies are a heavy, leaden gray. I just went in to the kitchen to refill my coffee cup and saw Midnight sitting on the back porch step. That is the signal that she’s ready for her breakfast.

When I opened the door, I was immediately subjected to a vocal, emphatic, feline monologue.

“I can’t do anything about the weather, Little Girl.”

“MEOW.”

“If you’d just let me touch you, we could negotiate a changed living arrangement. Inside is very nice. We have this thing called central heat and air and there’s no rain.”

“MEOW!”

“Okay, but that means you have to put up with wet feet every now and then.”

I dumped the crunchy kibble in her bowl and came in. She jumped up on the table and then treated me to one of those withering feline glares through the patio door that very plainly said, “You COULD do something about this weather if you just WOULD.”

Even though I’ve never touched her, it’s obvious I belong to Midnight and that she, like most cats, suffers terribly from the sheer incompetence of her human.

Sunday again. Didn’t we just do this?

I went to bed at 8:30 last night and didn’t really move until 7:30 this morning. That’s the second night in a row. I could easily have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but too much stuff to do.

As I emailed a friend yesterday, I’m prepared to declare the MacBook flicker 90% resolved. As long as I keep the brightness turned down a couple of notches, the screen is stable. I can live with that, and more or less solving / identifying the problem probably rates as my biggest accomplishment for the week. When you work online and depend on a laptop to be your office, issues of that sort are damned worrisome.

Tomorrow is supposed to be “attack the landscaping lights” day, but we have a forecast of rain with 100% coverage for the area. I’m guessing that will table the work, since in my experience water and electricity do not make for a good match.

That will give me an excuse to tackle the shredding, which I’ve let pile up a week or so too long. It’s a good thing R. never goes into the foyer. The sight of the stacks on the server would drive her insane. She’s already making grumbling noises about the vacuuming.

Yesterday, I flipped on an “I Love Lucy” marathon and could not help but be envious at their good-natured incompatibility. Lucy was forever getting into a fix with Ethel that sounded like a fine idea when they cooked it up and Ricky and Fred were forever getting them out of it and loving them anyway. And the apartment was always clean.

Most of the time I think R. and I are more like the “Odd Couple” with a hint of the “Munsters” thrown in for flavor. (Of course, she can burst into wailing tears with Lucy-esque aplomb. Maybe I need to learn to curse in Spanish.)

When I was at the library on Saturday, one of my favorite librarians, who knows our living situation, looked at the pile of books for R. and said, “All this murder. Wouldn’t she like a nice romance every now and then?”

“Not unless somebody gets killed.”

“What is it with little old ladies and murder?” she mused, as she scanned the barcodes.

“Wishful thinking?” I suggested.

“Doesn’t that make you a little nervous?”

“I can out run her,” I laughed.

“Well,” she said, finishing the last book. “Don’t trip.”

Yesterday I had a “crash and burn” day. R. had been pretty much impossible for 24 hours, my own thoughts were preying upon me, and I hadn’t been sleeping well for several nights. I had two errands to run and then I basically retreated to the couch, alternating between staring at the ceiling in abject misery and sleeping. Last night I had the good sense to take an herbal sedative. Twelve hours later and I’m back.

After several years, I’ve finally recognized that giving in to a “crash and burn” day is better than trying to fend one off. For me, at least, it’s a sign that everything needs to stop — mind and body. I need to go ahead and think all the stuff that makes me miserable and just get it over with.

I wish I had the kind of mind that just plods forward with happy positivism, but I’m Scot-Irish. Not gonna happen. I don’t think of myself as dour on a regular basis, but I do melancholy as well as the next person and optimism is always a stretch for me. Throw in fatigue, and I can easily slide over into being a radioactive mess.

In this instance, I’ve also been fending off a cold/respiratory thing and I honestly didn’t feel good physically. I think the encompassing technical term I’m searching for is “wallow.”

Of course today I’m fairly annoyed at myself because I didn’t get enough done yesterday and, I don’t really want to be what a character in my current TV obsession would call a “moody sod.” But there you have it.

As always with things mechanical around here, the landscape lighting issue isn’t going to be easy. What I thought was a blown fuse has turned into a bigger systemic problem. Finally, after trying to figure out what the hell the Empress was trying to tell me, I called the Good Ole Boy.

Looks like there’s a short, probably in the same bunch of wires that were cut by the idiot cable company back in 2006. Neither the sprinkler system nor the backyard lights have ever worked consistently since then.

Monday I’m supposed to meet Good Ole Boy and his Helper in front of the pool house at 1 o’clock to show them where the crime was originally committed. He’s prepared to dig until he finds the culprit. I hope he has gopher in his genetic background.

The timer is probably blown and at least two fixtures, where bulbs didn’t just go out but exploded, may be equally damaged. Makes me glad we raised the dues last year, because we do have a little surplus. I’m not thrilled about having to step up and deal with this, but the Empress looks so bad I just can’t be a bitch.

She didn’t even have the vocabulary to make me understand I needed to buy a bulb for the floodlight in the tree across from our patio. She made it sound like the whole fixture needed to be replaced. Good Ole Boy was just as frustrated by her lack of comprehension and was obviously relieved to be talking to me.

I may not know how to fix some of this stuff, but I’ve spent too much time with my Dad and our friend the Cajun not to at least follow the gist of the mechanical explanation and to ask reasonably intelligent questions. The Empress, on the other hand, has always had a man around so she doesn’t have to trouble herself with these things.

I don’t mind men troubling themselves with the work, but I’m not an empty-headed female either and I like to know what’s being done and why. I can’t help but feel we’re headed for changes around the old townhouse complex. The Empress is pushing 90 really hard. She doesn’t want to relinquish the reins, but she’s having a hard time staying in the saddle.

It’s obvious the lot of them think I’ll take on the job of HOA president one of these days. They’re wrong. But I have to balance that with not letting the place fall apart or the budget be decimated by unscrupulous repairmen.

That empty-headed female thing? Thinking that might have been a better life choice.

Yesterday the icy conditions between me and the Empress cracked just a bit. We’re having an issue with the yard lights, probably a blown fuse, but given the state of the breaker up on the pool house, I’m not touching it. I’ll do a lot for the little old ladies, but electrocution is not on my life list.

Basically as it stands now, the timer isn’t running, the lights in the front stay on 24 hours a day, and the ones in the back won’t come on at all. I’ve gone up twice now and fiddled with this and that, but with no success. So, I was finally compelled to ring the Empress’ doorbell after her phone had been busy for two hours.

The old bat does not look good. I found out from her daughter, the Grand Duchess, that the recent back surgery involved some sort of experimental procedure to glue a fractured vertebrae back together. Supposedly it’s minimally invasive, but the Empress looks like the Mongol hoards have run her down twice.

I explained the problem with the lights to her and suggested she call the Good Ole Boy who fixes our heating and air. I know he could use the work. He’s not higher than a cat’s back. And he’s given to reasonable assessments. He’s not going to take one look at her and see nothing but elderly profit potential.

A few minutes after I came back home, the phone played Chopin’s Funeral March. She had already talked to Good Ole Boy and he’ll be over today. She thanked me for being attentive to the lights and I told her she was welcome and said I hoped the dinner she was throwing for her worthless son’s birthday went well. (I didn’t mention the worthless part.)

It was the most civil exchange we’ve had in some time and when I visited with the Grand Duchess briefly in the driveway, she said her mother was looking for an avenue of rapprochement with me. I suggested that not bossing me around would be a good start, but also made it clear I’d never refuse to help a little old lady if she needed me.

We both kinda did the “old women will be old women” shrug and I went on about taking out the trash. When I came back inside, I related all this to R., who, on cue, said, “I don’t know why some people have to get so unpleasant when they get older.”

The voices of about six people who know me better than I know myself instantly screamed in my head, “DON’T SAY IT!”

I didn’t. I just smiled and said, “Me neither.”

But if a body could be indicted for her thoughts. Lord. God.

Okay, fingers crossed. It appears the mysterious screen flicker on the MacBook is solved. This morning my buddy Mark and I were kicking around ideas about the likely culprit. Heat issues topped the list. I decided to remove the red cover that has been in place for 3+ years and watch the temperature gauge. When I did, I discovered the battery was bulging. This is never a good sign.

As soon as I took the battery out, the operating temp of the machine dropped 25 degrees. That alone is a fairly telling. Now that I have picked up a replacement from the Apple store, I’m running better than 40 degrees cooler than what has been “normal.”

The disturbingly cheerful rep at the store confirmed that this is an issue that has begun to show up on machines of this vintage. My box isn’t under warranty and he couldn’t help me out dollar wise, but I feel much, much better about the whole thing. When I bought the Mac, I had in mind for it to be a five-year machine and we seem to be back on track for that goal.

And just to be safe, the cover isn’t going back on.

But the coolest part of the whole experience? Apple Dude swiped my card on his iPhone and emailed me the receipt. God, I love the 21st century.

Okay, so there’s this thing going around Facebook where people are posting photos of celebrities they think they look like or have been told they look like. Can I just say some of these are . . . optimistic?

I was discussing this with M.H. this morning as she was driving to work. “Whose photo did you put up?” she asked.

“I didn’t, I don’t look like anyone.”

“Well, hell, just put anybody up. Raquel Welch.”

“Darlin’,” I deadpanned, “You and I could crawl into Raquel Welch’s bra together and there’d still be room left over.”

The reason for the blog-less state of things these past three days is that I’ve been in a word-less state of mind. We’ve had kind of an up and down state of diplomatic relations and there’s not a lot new to say about that. Sometimes it feels like I’ve written the same blog entry several thousand times over the last eight years.

The daughter of a friend turns 21 tomorrow. As her mother and I were discussing that, we wondered at how fast the years have gone by since we were that and younger. I observed that I still feel that young inside and my friend suggested I take a Tums. She’s that way, but I know for all her growling, she feels it too.

I think what you learn as you grow older is that for the most part, you don’t really feel any older on the inside. Oh sure, you get beat up, dinged here and there. Hopefully you won’t repeat some of the same dumb mistakes. But inside? Well, you’re just you.

During slow periods, when I’m not writing my fingers off, I probably have way too much time to think. I’m bad to do that anyway. In the last few days, I realized something interesting. Back then, when I was 21 and younger, all I dreamed about doing was being able to stay at home surrounded by my cats, keeping my own hours, and writing for a living.

And that’s exactly how I do live. I was too young then to realize how the natural problems of life’s practicalities would play into the scenario. I hadn’t lived long enough to know something keeps everyone up at night, or that how ever hard we work to avoid it, someone will always depend on us. I actually wouldn’t want to be the kind of person someone couldn’t depend on. Responsibility sucks, but irresponsibility sucks more.

I’m not concerned that 26 years have passed since I was 21. I would be if I’d lived two decades and then some and felt like I had it all figured out. I really don’t think we should ever stop trying to figure it out. I’m not going to try to say that to my friend’s daughter when I wish her a happy birthday. She’s 21. She knows she’s got it all figured out.

But when she gets to this place? To not knowing a blessed thing, but being okay with working on it? She’ll be a hell of a woman.

Well, I guess everyone knows that the big product launch yesterday wasn’t Minka Aire fans. Yeah, Apple finally brought out their long-awaited tablet and just the way everybody jumped on the iPhone, fangs gnashing with doom, they’re crawling all over this thing.

Could I just point out that comparing the iPad to a laptop doesn’t make sense because it’s not a laptop? It’s a tablet.

Different class of machine. Different interface. Different purposes. Different uses.

Am I interested? Sure. Can I afford it? No. Would I consider it for the future. Possibly. The thing won’t even be available for two months and the developers have just now gotten their hands on it. Who knows where that will go?

What really strikes me is that the same seething level of negativity and disapproval that is permeating every aspect of our social discourse right now, oozed over to a product launch for God’s sake.

There was a speech on TV last night too. Some people might have caught that one as well. See previous comment re seething levels of negativity and disapproval.

My opinion? How about putting down the switch blades and see if the tone of the conversation improves.

Geez.

Okay, with some minor expenses you just have to suck it up and pay. In the interest of keeping R. entertained while I’m trying to work, I re-activated my Netflix account. I mean honestly, how the hell many times can the woman sit there and watch “Gladiator?” If I’m mouthing the dialog along with Maximus from the other room, she has to have the thing memorized by now. I’m suspecting this is going to be nine bucks well spent.

This could also go in an interesting direction, since I also decided to upgrade from Windows 7 Starter edition to the Home Premium on the netbook. I’m using the little sucker like crazy and was starting to run into annoying limitations because of Microsoft’s annoying decision to create a half-assed version of Windows. And here’s the kicker. It’s not a smaller install. The Home edition is lighter. Bill, honestly, how much more money do you need?

Long story short, I now have Windows Media Center, which interfaces with Netflix, which means I can stream content on to the little HD set in the kitchen. No captions, but with her headphones, R. might be able to get by. This could significantly improve our evening viewing. As is, I’m enjoying streaming content while I work. (I started off with one of those serious little, no-background-music flicks you wonder why major stars make, something called “Personal Effects” with Michelle Pfeiffer and Ashton Kutcher. Let me just say, I don’t get the Ashton Kutcher thing, but I digress.)

I have determined that our current Internet / cable combo is the cheapest we can get in this area. If Netflix successfully adds captions to their streaming content during the coming year as their blog says they are attempting to do, I can see getting a Roku box and cutting back to nothing but the basic channels. If I lived alone, I’d just cut cable off altogether.

As it is, I’m finally satisfied that I’m getting maximum value out of all these components. It’s funny, but I’ve gotten to the point in life that I don’t mind paying for something that gets used and used well in a way that positively contributes to my work and our life, but excess is starting to make me a little nuts.