Better late than....?

Normally, this would have been posted before now, during the afternoon of May 29, 2024 but, as all too often occurs, our internet service provider, frontier, has delivered an outage instead of its usaul less than broadband speeds. The county has had several task forces exploring broadband service, but, as near as l can tell, nothing substantive has come of it. We’re in an exurban area that’s not dense enough development to make service profitable for cable etc.

Frontier has estimated it may take up to 8 hours to restore DSL and our land line phone. These days the land line is only good for scammers and political funding seekers, and our Republican congressman who invites us to virtual town hall meetings.

Our electricity service has been interrupted a couple of times in the past few months, with no forewarning. I believe one of Xcel’s techs cut an old phone line when he installed one of our new “smart” meters. No one bothered to mention the cut line to us as the techs left after their visits.

I believe the smart meters are being installed because our Public Utilities Commission mandated (or “suggested”) it. It’s not at all clear that they’ll benefit us as consumers. But then we live in an age when elected officials and regulatory agencies seem much more sensitive to corporate profits and providing agricultural subsidies than meeting the needs of John and Suzie Q. Citizen. Might that explain why an orange POS like tRUMP has any appeal at all these days? We get a choice of not the lessor of two evils but neither is a proverbial knight in shining armor.

Well, I’ve vented enough steam about today’s frustrations, although I didn’t mention the mosquitos. I’ll copy and paste and post this when, and if?, the string joining our two tin cans gets tied back together.

[Service restored around 8 pm, word has it someone cut a fiber cable.]

Internet Support Group

By Chelsea B. DesAutels

In the shade of a maple tree, on a grassy hill,

            three women laid hands on me.

One saw a cave in my hips. Another felt bricks

            rising from a brook. The last heard a bellow

from deep within the woods. We were strangers

            come together to spend an afternoon

drinking tea & sharing stories of cellular bad luck,

            then suddenly makeshift healers

summoning our mothers' lessons on touch—

            on heat & symmetry, tenderness & release.

From above, we might have looked like sundials

            or spokes on a round knitting loom.

We wanted so badly to believe

            in our ministry we ignored the obvious.

That milk thistle grows here because of stolen land.

            The auspicious arrival of geese is the result of

migratory patterns. Even the static inside our cells

            likely explainable by simple division.

It's embarrassing, sometimes, how far I'll go

            searching for unprecipitated magic,

much I'll trust that pine air cures cancer

            or the hawk overhead is only keeping watch.

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