Tuesday 10 November 2009

I kill technology

About three nights into the all-night-feeding marathon that has become
my life, my watch stopped. This was pretty annoying. If you're going
to be up for hours feeding, you want to know HOW many hours you were
up for, feeding, so you can claim the appropriate sympathy from your
spouse the next morning. [No OF COURSE I'm not doing all the feeding.
We're just not always up at the same time]. Also, you can find out
whether that cry really is for the next feed, or if you just fell
asleep out of sheer exhaustion for about sixty seconds and actually,
that cry is part of the same feed you were already doing and thought
you had finished but the baby was only faking being asleep and now
wants MORE MILK, darnit, MORE, NOW.

Anyway, after a few nights (and days) of no watch, and J getting a
little fed up with me saying 'what's the time, sweetie?' about every
ten minutes, I decided enough was enough. I bought a new watch, for
the princely sum of fifty birr. This was great! That night, I knew
that when I woke up, it was 12.30. And then, next time, it was
12.45.... what? That doesn't add up, especially since the first feed
had taken about an hour.

And that was when I found out that my second watch had stopped, too,
on the very first night I owned it. (And no, it wasn't a wind-up. We
tried).

So anyway. I think I have accepted the no-watch situation, until we
get back to the land of branded replacement batteries. But that is
really just my way of gently introducing the fact that today,
completely out of the blue and unexpectedly, my LAPTOP died. Utterly
and completely - I can't even turn it on. It was only three months
old, and I really loved that little machine. I loved that it enabled
me to send email. I loved that I could download my photos onto it. I
didn't, but I could. I loved that it had all my music on it, that I
could play through its tinny little speakers in the middle of the
night.

For now, I'm typing on my mum's. But it will go back and live in her
room, and mine is staring at me blankly, with its empty screen mocking
me. What's the point of all this? No idea, really, except that I now
feel even more cut off from everything and everyone.

And since it seems my powers of killing technology are increasing... I
really, really hope that there are several spare engines on the plane
on the way home.

4 comments:

  1. well you didn't crash your mom's computer so ... maybe it was a rule of three thing. excited for you to be home, get your computer fixed, and start posting loads of pics and videos ... and names!!!

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  2. Oh, Claudia. That is sucky. Plane engines do not apply, that's like machinery, not technology anymore, you know. That would be my odd rationale about that topic, lest I jinx myself and obsess about that while on the plane. Did I mention I don't fly well? I'm quite sure I have. I'm glad they are eating so well. I know it's exhausting, but such a good thing.

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  3. Maybe you are giving so much life to your babies that you zap the life out of unnecessary, granted very useful, objects, to be put to better use? Seriously, I cannot wait until you are home!

    Hugs to you and hope home is closer than you think!

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  4. My laptop died after a couple of days in Addis, I suspect the intermittent power did the deed. When I got home I ordered a new power source (plugger-inner "brick"). Good as new. Here's hoping yours will be the same.

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Over to you!