b ~ I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

The other evening T marched into the bedroom, clearly frustrated. His
declaration was simple: “We will never have high-speed internet at
this house!” It was an announcement that needed an exclamation mark to
give it strength and fortitude. Then he retracted his statement and
said in a matter-of-factly sort of voice, “I predict I will graduate
before high-speed comes here, which is much, much too late.”

Yes, for all of you readers in the real world whose mouths have
perhaps dropped open—we do indeed still have dial up here. That weird
high-pitched screeching sound that you barely remember? It’s a daily
occurrence at our house. Perhaps you even feel a little nostalgic when
you hear the sound, for some us it’s still a battle cry. We try to
connect, then wait and wait and wait…

We’ve adapted and do most of our internet work 5 miles away in town.
This is mostly okay, unless you are a teen with a very big project due
the following day–who has yet to get a driver’s license– then it
becomes unbearable.

Generally I don’t mind, I like the slowness, the turtle pace at which
our connection moves. It means I won’t be falling down any
Pinterest-induced rabbit holes anytime soon. I get on, send a few emails and
then move on to other real-world things. Anything else is virtually impossible with this set-up.

And honestly, I don’t know what the future holds. If I look into the
waters they are murky; the tea leaves just look like big blobs of,
well, tea leaves. I can’t divine messages from my dreams, nor do I
have a crystal ball. (As much as I would like one.)

Instead we take it day by day here, trying not to get ahead of myself
by fretting about what’s to come. This summer T will be gone for at
least 7 weeks, which means we’ll be a family of two again. Among the
popsicles, fireworks and trips to the drive-in, I predict there will
be lots of time spent cleaning and purging to get ready for the late
summer picnic I wish to have. This will be a chance to say thank you
to all of the friends who’ve given of themselves and extended invites
to their own festivities while we’ve lived here.  But there will still
be moments of missing and moments of pure summer joy. That much I know.