NOTE: You may notice that this e-mailer is coming from a different "e-mail"... Well, read on:
It is with great sadness that I share with you the grave illness of my very dear Dora. (You might know her better by her first name, Computa.) She has been by my side, faithfully responding to every command - with an occasional quirk - for over three years. They tell me this is an early age for members of her species (better know as "computadoras") to go into a comma, but this is exactly what has happened...
Maybe it was my fault; I did abuse her - I confess - oftentimes asking her to do things well beyond what anyone could expect from her type. But she was always so willing; almost begging to be pushed beyond her limits... She wasn't the fastest or did not have the greatest of capacity; but she tried really hard to accommodate my every command... It really was not her fault, I am sure. Her genetics - her view into her world; her "window", you might say - was messed up to begin with... It is as if her soft and small - tiny, actually - original sin ("microsoft") never allowed her to fully realize who she could be... So what could I expect?
One of Dora's main function in her short life was to help me with the family e-mailer. She kept track of so many details! - pictures, addresses, notes, etc. She was also my gateway* into our repository of records - i.e.: my website - which you can still visit for 'historical' purposes, but it is not being updated this month.
*Though she was not from the "gateway" family; she was actually kind of a 'bastard child'... I think that ultimately her mother's board - or "motherboard" as some call it - might have just given out; given up... Her eyesight too, might have been the problem. That indispensable organ - the "graphic card" - might have gone caputs as well...
I pray to Father Bill (Gates) that when he conceived my dear Dora he instilled in her enough healthy genes so that Brother Glen (Gardiner) can hopefully resurrect her... If so, we'll be back in business next month.
If for some reason Dora's situation is terminal, I may very well be tempted to go to the 'dark side' and negotiate with our lost angel, Mac. While some say that "once you go Mac you never go back" , I may have no choice.
So, please excuse me for not sharing stories from our recent celebration of those two great Americanized Cuban saints (San Givin - better know as "Thanksgiving" - and San Ticlos - better known as " Santa Claus")... At times like this you don't feel like doing much of anything else* but hope & pray that Dora will get well soon...
Her illness has left me nearly parlyzed; I no longer check my bank account, fix my oodles of pictures, or spend endless hours checking on the most recent minutia of Cuba-news... I have to rely on Dora's cousins around the house, but it just ain't the same. I knew Dora; Dora knew me - you know what I mean, right?
Brother Glen tells me it may two or three weeks before I get my Dora back, so hopefully by next months we'll either have her back or will have gone through the grieving process - and we'll return to our regularly scheduled e-mailers.
*At times like this you actually feel like Charlie Brown. As Lucy told him when he asked her for psychiatric advice: "You, Charlie Brown, are a foul ball in the line drive of life... You are a missed free throw... You are in the shadow of your own goal post... You have dropped a rod and reel in the lake of life... You are a called third strike..." To which Charlie Brown replied: "WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR!"
:-)
Happy 2008!
& As always: Live Life Loud - the Cuban Way !
rr&gd
