Lappy!

So, here I am, total dork, reveling in my newfound wirelessness by snapping pictures of Chopper at the Ugly Mug Coffeehouse while he reads the sports page and we drink our double espressos. Yes kids, this is me, blogging our very first trip to a coffee shop with a laptop that actually CONNECTS TO THE INTERNET!

(And with that technologically antediluvian confession, we’ve completely lost all of our geek cred.)

In truth, I wasn’t expecting to luck out like this, but two days with mouse poised to refresh and browser open to Craig’s List really can pay off.

Seriously, this little baby’s processor is faster than the one in my desktop. And it’s got a DVD player that I swear plays DVDs better than the gizmo that’s hooked up to our TV. Crazy, huh? I’m like a kid in a candy shop and I’ve just discovered this newfangled thing called the gummy bear. What’s next? Phones that take pictures? How cool is that?

Now for the fun part: No, not formatting, uploading, organizing, watching Platelicker and The Cat fight over who gets to be on my wallpaper… Not that tedium. No, the fun part is naming my new lappy!

Whaddya mean you don’t name your computers? Doesn’t everyone name their computers? Hell, I even name my hard drives within my computers. My desktop? He’s Aziraphale, after the angel in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens. (There, that should restore some of that geek cred.) My three internal drives? Horrabin (after the terrifying clown-on-stilts in Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates), Jivecow (after, er, nothing at all – I’m certain Chopper made that one up), and Seraphim (yeah, I know, it’s plural. Get over it.)

So now I’ve my new lappy, and lappy needs a name!

In fact, oh what the heck.

It’s MizD’s Name My Lappy Contest!

Submit your suggestions here.

The winner, selected either by MizD, Chopper, or The Cat as she walks across the keyboard and votes with her claws, will receive the fabulous prize of:

The Undying Gratitude of MizD’s New Laptop, Which, by the way, is an Inanimate Object and Completely Incapable of Expressing Undying Gratitude!

(Ahem. Bonus geek cred restoration, courtesy of Chopper’s t-shirt logo.)

So here we are in our strange little cave, surrounded by the glories of the big city.

(Big city dwellers, stop laughing now, dammit. Portland is big. She is a fierce and feisty corgi next to your fussy whippets and poodles. Heart the size of a mountain, this corgi has.)

Chopper’s in front of me on our foam pad bed watching tennis (Agassi!) on the telly while I’m typing on my tiny Visor, foldable Stowaway keyboard atop a banker box on the floor. We’ve got a cooler across the room for vodka, beer, wine, juice (in that order of priority), and open cans of food for the cat. Poor Cat has hairball issues and is on a special diet these days.

Next door (cave part two), Platelicker’s sprawled on the cool cement just beyond my mini-office: one table, one chair, one file cabinet, computer, scanner, printer, and the most important purchase since our arrival: a hotplate for emergency tea.

What’s this? We moved from an island to a basement?

No worries. It’s just temporary. In a month or so, we’ll have our old house back (and our own kitchen at long last!), but in the interim we’re staying with friends, just a short hop away and still in our old neighborhood.

And what a neighborhood!

New restaurants, new shops, even a new weekly farmers market, and all within walking distance! We are ready for some serious exploration and re-discovery. I mean, dude, there’s a cheese shop that’s goat and sheep central, and damn that espresso across the street hit the happy caffeine spot.

Not that we’re leaving the island behind for good, mind you. See, time up there was always at a premium; frantic bits of freedom jammed between long hours at work and long hours of caregiving, and so we’ve got quite the backlog of adventures (and photos) to blog. And, on top of that, we’ll be back for visits. Can’t keep these two barflies away from the pub forever, you know.

(Brief pause for a wave hello to the boys at the pub.)

Meanwhile, we’re taking it easy these first days, getting our bearings, organizing our small collection of unpacked belongings, reconnecting with old friends.

Oh, and lounging. We are all about the lounging. In fact, our goal (after this exhausting and quite annoyingly busy summer) is to perfect the fine art of productive lounging.

Cooler full of tasty beverages just five feet away from the bed and me with a keyboard? I think we’re off to a good start.