In Shinnston

I drove over the mountains today-- leaves coming out in Maryland around Hagerstown, and then up on Big Savage Mountain-- snow-- not groundcover, but strips and patches and a few piles. And over here, in Shinnston, it looks about like New Jersey: very green on the hillsides but trees a passage of gray, barely pink at the tips, so close to bursting out!

Aside from visiting and checking on my mother, my big job here is to get her computing, and I'm writing this on her Lenovo, which is a nice little machine, square faces, which I probably like better than my laptop, which is just back from the shop.

Things are good here now, although I’ve been totally embarrassed by not being able to get the dial-up to work, and finally discovering, after calling AOL, that I had the phone wire plugged into the wrong place–the ethernet, I guess, instead of the lineout. I have worked so hard to get this up for my mother–the computer functioning in a way she can learn. So far, she has actually done better than I expected. I think she wants to learn. At 88. Very exciting, really. Also, a diversion when she’s alone.