Goodbye, old friend

I've never really been able to understand how people can get really attached to inanimate objects like a car. However, I now know how a mechanic might feel when he has to make the difficult decision to scrap the car he's worked on for years for parts.

This weekend I had to make a similarily difficult decision to say goodbye to an old friend - my computer, Hercules. I've decided that it's not worth sticking any more money into him and I bought a new Dell computer. I'm going to tear Hercules apart and sell his parts on Ebay. Is it a silly attachment? Think about this:

When I built Herc, he was the top of his kind. I had people drooling over him. That was almost seven years ago, and he still performs almost as well as middle-range new computers now. But technologies change, and it's hard to upgrade him at a low cost anymore. He's been with me through two husbands, six relationships, four states, two laptops and much, much more.

It's strange to me to feel legitimately bad about getting rid of a computer, but I do!

Slow down and watch the rain

Sometimes you have to make yourself take a step back and slow down. Tonight I decided to sit out on the balcony and watch and listen to the rain. It was really fairly cool. I watched a toad hopping around for about 20 minutes. I watched a tiny river of runoff turn into a small pond amongst the trees. I even got to see an owl swoop down and grab something out of the grass. I thought about how I couldn't stand to live in a dry climate. I thought about how in a wet climate like Florida, there really isn't a way to waste water. It all ends up as rain again sooner or later. I thought about how to that little toad, the tiny stream would be like a 30-foot wide river to an average-height person.

I've let myself become too busy. Thank goodness there's rain to help me slow down once in a while.