Start The World ― I Want To Get On!

      I just spent 31/2  days steeped in a 21st-Century equivalent of Walden Pond. 
     That is to say,  without internet. 
      Which is as close to Walden Pond as I ever wish to get.  Closer, even. 

     Especially considering that I haven’t been off mellowing   in the bucolic New England country side,

...but rather have been frenetically ― if  hermetically ― scooting around the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

  This story actually begins about a week and a half ago when I received a call from my daughter Maria who lives with her family in South Bay.  The house-hunt they'd been on for the past several months had suddenly come to an abrupt halt a few days earlier when they not only found their perfect new house, but, by a combination of luck and deal-making, this house was available to them for immediate occupation.
     Could I fly out soon as possible to help them settle in with the new move?

...and also with the new puppy they'd just acquired?

    Of course I could, replied I, and  I did, arriving in LA ready on Thursday, July 20, ready to hit the ground running and doing whatever was required of me.
     As it turned out, hitting the ground running was pretty much what was required.
     Their new house is lovely,

...light, and spacious,

...and has a nice   backyard,  a good size  by Los Angeles standards,

...with a pretty  nectarine tree in one corner.

---

   However, on the day I arrived the house was lacking a few desirable household accessories: it had no  washer and dryer,  microwave oven,  working dishwasher, working heating or air-conditioning,

...or dog that was house-trained,

...or floors and carpets cleaned and vacuumed by the previous tenants before they left,  or a refrigerator full of food,  or a TV connection, and, worst of all, there was no internet!
    I arrived on Thursday; the house's internet connection  wasn't scheduled to be installed until the following Sunday.
   Oh, no, thought I upon hearing this news, No email! No news! No blog!  For days!
    "There's a McDonald's around here," my daughter offered, "or a coffee shop where you can go to use the WIFI." 
     And I suppose I could in fact have slipped out.  But, in truth, slipping out that wasn't what I was here for. 
     I was here to help with the cleaning, the errand-running,  the running out to do the laundry,

...the unpacking, the organizing,

...the shopping,

...the cooking,

...the hand-washing of the dishes,

...caring for the munchkins  so that Mom and Dad could get some work done,

...and, of course,helping with the biggest  drainer of them all of time, energy, and attention:

     I've been telling him he's darned lucky he's so cute.

     In any case, for those 3 1/2  unplugged, internet-free  days, so enveloped was I  in the world going on immediately around me, working,

...and playing,

...all day, then falling into bed at night until it was time to get up in the middle of the night with the crying puppy (which I insist on doing while I'm here to give my daughter and son-in-law a break), I barely noticed or even thought about being out of touch with the bigger world.
     By Sunday afternoon, though, the internet was up and running and we were all back in touch again, and I'm finally back in the blogging business, at least when I can grab a minute here or there.
      "So how was it being without internet for three days," asked my Hubby Tom from back home in Columbus.
        "Actually, kind of exhausting,"  I sighed.

"Equal And Opposite Reactions"
         by Patti Liszkay
is available at
http://www.blackrosewriting.com/romance/equalandoppositereactions,
amazon.com, 
barnesandnoble.com,
Kindle Edition, and
Gramercy Books in Bexley, Ohio