Back, I hope!

Well, the attempt to clean the old mouse, and then the attempt to get the old mouse working properly again, obviously did not work out as planned. Yesterday after going to the post office, I went out to see if Circuit City might have reasonable prices for mice now that the stores are all closing down. After going very cautiously on the icy, slushy sidewalks in the residential areas, it was nice to walk on the drier, cleaner walks in front of busy stores, though I still had to be careful in muddy spots. Anyway, as it turns out, Circuit City reminded me why they are going out of business: even when they're desperately discounting to try to get people to buy buy buy, their prices are still insane. There was also some audio device in the store which was playing something seemingly designed to induce altered mental function at high volume--not a comfortable thing for me at all. So after, um, buying a couple of Nine Inch Nails CDs there (okay, those prices weren't too bad), I went to another store and happily bought myself a computer mouse and a telephone. Then I walked outside--

--and almost immediately slipped in some slush and hit the ground with a WHACK! Ow. Left hand got a bit gashed, left elbow had some light bleeding, left knee also bled a little and swelled up noticeably (I notice it, anyway). The mouse packaging got a bit of road rash too. A nice young man offered to help me up, so I held out my right hand while trying to get the left one in position to push up--but the guy helpfully tried to take all of my weight, which put me seriously off-balance and is probably why my right shoulder hurt overnight. Anyway, I did get up, and the damage all appears to be minor though all the muscles in my back and arms have been hurting today and that left knee feels odd when I walk very far.

Got home, washed my injured bits, and installed the mouse. Mouse worked fine. Modem stopped working. After the day I'd had, I figured it was best to just unplug everything and try again another day. So today after reading a bit, yelling at some kids who were throwing things at the house (gah!), going for a walk, talking to the doctor about another antibiotic prescription, buying a few groceries, and completely forgetting to buy tissues (whew!), I finally sat down with the computer, took it apart, and reassembled it in a way that I hoped would work better. And it worked! At least it seems to have worked, since the modem did decide to behave itself and get online this evening.

And now, after some housemates, landlord, and I all spent time trying to get the interconnected smoke detectors to just shut up already, it was only pizza and no reason to keep blaring this long after the oven was turned off shut up shut up shut up! I am genuinely, sincerely hoping for a quiet night tonight.