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June 19,1998
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It's the last day of school and there's a giant shoe sale - 10,000 pairs - at the Old Andover Town Hall. There's no place to park anywhere near the downtown. It's so humid the air is too heavy to breathe. I feel like I'm swimming once I find a parking space and get out of the car. I'm soaked by the time I get to Starbucks, which is mobbed with mothers and kids and bags of shoes. Main Street, Park Street, and whatever that other street is that I can never remember the name of are blocked off. Not only are 10,000 pairs of shoes appearing at Old Town Hall but characters are making the rounds of a bazaar that has materialized in the streets. Arthur and Elmo and whoever that blue Muppet is strolled among the antiques outside Bider's. Bears, records, cameras, clothes each have a tent. It's too humid to shop. Are these people crazy? The sky hasn't really cleared. There's still flash flood warnings up. There's thunderstorms around. A tiny glimpse of blue sky and hot temperatures and there's thousands of people in the streets shopping. No sump pump bazaar tent though. I finally checked my basement and determined that the drain trough thingie worked. There's no standing water, just mold and a kind of damp feeling. I cranked up the de-humidifier to "driest" and left it running (it's hooked up to the pipe where the washer would drain if I had a washer so I don't have to empty the tank constantly). That should dry it out some. I've got to hire somebody to come in and bleach the walls and floors and get rid of old cardboard boxes that are now useless. Why do computer manufacturers always tell you to keep the box so you can ship it back? And why do I obey them? Anyway, the boxes must go. The nieces got out of school early on this the last day of school, so I sped off to Groton - after entering a few more bird records into Bird Brain 4.0; just couldn't resist. Just a few minutes before the bus pulled up to drop them off for the final time of the school year it started to rain again. Fortunately, the kids amused themselves with an elaborate game of stuffed animals go to school. Andrea even changed clothes so she would look more like a teacher. School's out for the kids but in for the stuffed animals. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to television and games of Redline Racer on the computer. I am hopeless at Redline Racer. Driving a motorcycle by pressing the arrow keys just doesn't come instinctively to me. I kept wanting to turn the handlebars and shift my weight to lean into the turn, not press left arrow! The 3D graphics are pretty good but the game just didn't seem that much like driving to me. Come to think of it, years ago there used to be all this fuss about how girls weren't learning the computer skills they would need later in life because they didn't play computer games as much as the boys did. I even remember reading one article that claimed girls not only needed to learn to play computer games but needed to learn how to push the boys out of the way to get at the computers - apparently there were not enough computers to go around and the boys hogged them to play shoot 'em up games. Then there was this big push to develop games for girls - like Barbie Fashion Design or whatever it's called, which I suppose is good if you want to learn fashion design skills. Anyway, I'm not sure what girls or boys are supposed to learn from Redline Racer - how to press left and right arrow alternately? Is there a game that will teach them whatever is going to supplant Java by the time they grow up? Personally, I like the Easy Bake Oven a lot better than computer games. Yes, I have no games on my computer. (Bird Brain doesn't count - it's a database not a game no matter how much fun I have with it.) Back home here in my hovel, I notice that the starlings seem to have left the air conditioner. Hmm, last day of school and the starlings fledged. Great timing. Now if only I can get somebody to clean up their mess before the parents considered raising a second brood! |
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