AWOL router

Due to the lovely vagaries of the English language, does my title refer to A)  a tool for providing direction to those who are away without leave?  Or  B) the inability of my computer in Studio E to communicate with the rest of the world -- which the Comcast guy suggests is the problem of the router, and not Comcast? (Oh, no. Surely not the problem of Comcast.)

Yes, fans, it's B.  Here I am, for seemingly the millionth time, camped out on Tim's computer, on the productive side of the router.  I was going to feed a couple of bags of Amish friendship bread starter and mush them to within an inch of their lives, but I believe we're out of milk (one of the 3 nourishing ingredients, along with flour and sugar.) So I MAY go back up to Studio E and try to produce something, or I might go sulk.  Creatively.  I sure wish I had some of last night's chocolate mousse!

I must mention that today I finished reading a riveting memoir called "Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter" by Barbara Robinette Moss... a book which has been sitting around the house for years. A promotional copy had been sent to the radio station where Tim was working many years ago, and he had brought it home when the station was done with it. I enjoy memoir and this, as has been true of so many popular memoirs in the last decade, came out of a childhood of wrenching poverty caused by an alcoholic parent. Malnutrition and lack of medical and dental care had caused the author's face  and teeth to develop malformed, and so she also suffered taunts and abuse from schoolmates and others outside the family.  As her story ended, she had moved past 2 hurried and awful marriages, raised a fine, feeling and intelligent son, and was pursuing a career as a full time writer in Iowa City. 

I Googled her to see what she was up to lately (and, honestly, hoping to see a photo of her younger self before experimental plastic surgery techniques "gave her a face") -- and I probably browsed through five articles before I stumbled across one that referred to "the late Barbara Moss."  She died a year ago of cancer.  What a cruel trick... to survive all that and achieve great things... only to be stopped at age 54 by a truly heartless adversary.  And, oddly, I felt I'd lost a friend... since I know more about her life and heart than I know about most of the people in my daily life.  Such is the gift that writing can give.  I think everyone should write something about their lives to leave a piece of themselves behind.

And perhaps this blog is a way I do that...