The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said, "little creature, formed of joy and mirth,
Go love without the help of any thing on earth."

William Blake
The Angel that Presided

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Happy Birthday, Jason

Ed has decided to get Jason some contact lenses for his birthday, so Jason and I went to the local Pearle Vision Center for his eye examination. Ed joined us when he got off work. While Jason was having his head examined, er, EYES examined, Ed and I were reminiscing.

Hearing Jason say, "T, O, L, 4" reminded us of other eye exams when he was too little to communicate or follow instructions. Jason was in glasses before he was two years old. They used instruments to measure and record the shape of his eye in order to arrive at a prescription. They used blinking colored lights and puppets all over the room to get him to look in a certain direction. Now, he says, "It just looks like a bunch of dots to me." Quite an improvement.

Since I wrote an entry about Teresa's birth, I feel I should also write one about Jason's . . .but I'm not. I recently submitted a story to Over the Gate and it will be published in the May 10 issue, I believe. I'll sure be bragging when it comes out . .anyway, just change the names to Carole, Jason, Ed, etc . .and it will change the fiction to non-fiction.

My theme for today seems to be All My Children and no, I don't watch that soap. Teresa sent me some Word documents to look at and Daniel called me for a ride home and asked me to take him his boots.

We noticed on the way to school that we had Daniel's boots in the car. These aren't ordinary boots; they are special high-dollar boots that he wears every day. I asked him what he had been wearing to school for the past two days; in all his Gothness, after all, he only wears black. He's been wearing some of Ed's old slippers. They are velvet. (Ed had them twenty-something years ago when I met him.) Daniel's friends seemed to like rubbing them.

The reason I had to pick him up is because he attended a job fair. Let me say this again: my son attended a job fair. If you knew Daniel, you would know how incredible that is. Who would ever think? This is the teenager who sold his car so he wouldn't have to work to pay for it. He seems very excited about some of the prospective employers and I think I'll be taking him on an interview tomorrow. I should worry -- they say if your children start acting a little weird, they might be on drugs or something.

I think Teresa simply wanted me to learn some humility. Her boss dumped a goodly problem in her lap. They have several documents that they use for auditing purposes. They are fancy schmancy Word documents with macros and scripts and bells and whistles -- but they don't work. Her task is to make them work. Actually, they work beautifully in Word 5.0. The problem is, some of the reps have had their systems upgraded to Office 97 . .no workee no more.

Leave it to Microsoft, if they can break something, they can and DO. I've fiddled and coded and hacked and I sure can't make them work either. Of course, I know nothing about Word in the first place, but I'm a programmer; I should be able to figure it out, right? Oh, and Teresa says when I figure it out, I can put it on my resume'.

Just what I need, more Micro$oft expertise.

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