Three Little Hammies

The image above pretty much sums up the ongoing Cold War in our house. I mean that literally. My husband is a rather stocky, muscular man, a Tolkien dwarf come to life. I swear if I got pregnant, I'd give birth to a 12 lbs pot roast. Anyway, all that muscle generates a lot of heat and so he's always hot. So up (or down?) the AC goes. Indeed, a Ham in his natural environment would probably be during the last Ice Age, in "balmy, sub–zero, shorts–weather." In contrast, I'm constantly cold. And since Ham doesn't appreciate—as I do—the hand–warming properties of his body for my frosty fingers and toes, I have to bundle up in my own house just to maintain my core temperature. 

Anyway, in the whirlwind of recent activity, I've neglected posting about three more Hammies that've been born. Actually, I've been taken by surprise with the popularity of these little guys—they may outsell my regular work! While they started as a ode to my abiding husband, they've transformed into a shared ode to those loved ones who endure our quirks. And it's been such a treat to hear your stories relating to a Hammie! So for these three new ones, let's set the stage…

I'm not the type to vigilantly maintain my computer in lean mean racing condition. As long as it goes well enough, I'm satisfied. I'm also not the type to fanatically stay current with an operating system. I tend to stick with one, get comfortable, and drive it into the ground, so to speak.

So here I was cruising along for years, doing all my records, articles, Boat publishing, photo editing—everything—and all while blithely neglecting to clean out my computer or update my OS. It could be said I just didn't run Tiger into the ground, I augered it in. 

This would have gone on for many more years had Paypal shipping not become a thorn in my side because of it. My version of Tiger became so outdated that Paypal shipping, among other things, became increasingly incompatible. Even the USPS site became quirky. But being obscenely spoiled by online shipping, the thought of waiting in line at the PO was (gasp) unthinkable. To rectify this, I had to (finally) update my OS to Snow Leopard and then to Lion.

To do that though meant some Mac house cleaning was in order—or to be more precise, a backhoeing of my Mac was in order. Now, in contrast, my IT–guru husband religiously keeps his machines in fine shape, de–fragging and de–thising and de–thating like a proper, devout geek. So while his machines sing, my Mac sobs. Trust me—only a Mac could tolerate my shameful treatment! So. All this meant I had to empty the trash can. 

For the first time in…oh…five years!

I clicked on that little magic trash can, and lo and behold—over 13,000 items sat there, patiently waiting for their destiny with oblivion. Wow. That's pretty impressive even by my incompetent standards. So I click "delete trash" and off it goes, finally doing what it's waited so long to do. And it takes 30 minutes to delete my trash can. 

I saunter back to Ham's mancave—casual, almost ambivalent—and nonchalantly quip that 13,000+ items are currently being deleted from my trash can. He looks up at me with a blank stare…then this Hammie erupts from his spastic incredulity:

Hammie #6: "You HAVE HOW MANY ITEMS TO DELETE?! HOW MANIEEEEEEE?!!"

But it doesn't end there. Of course not. In the process of deleting the trash can, I somehow managed to delete my browser, too. And one he'd spent some bit of time setting up for me months earlier. I still don't know how I did it, but it apparently had to do with icons and hard drives. So when I realized that my Internet "didn't work," back I saunter to the mancave, plaintively pleading with that all–to–familiar, "Hey…Haaaaam?…", which is just a polite way of informing him that I've got another gem of trouble just for him.

Hammie #7: "How…how…did you delete your browser? Seriously? How."

But wait—there's more! I also happen to be of the (futile) belief that if you click on something enough times it'll speed up the function of the command. That the amount of clicks works like circuit board accelerator. Ham has scolded me many times about my astute practice of this technique, but well…let's just say when electronic impulses take too long, off I go clicking like a crazy person.

It's no surprise then that this locked up some sort of vital function necessary for the upgrade. So what would have taken 15 seconds had I waited now required a reboot. Ham suffered in silence, standing behind me, his facing saying everything that needed saying:

Hammie #8: (thought bubble) —> "Yes, she did it again. I've told her a million times and yes…she did it. Again." (rolling eyes)

So there ya have it folks. Three fresh new Hammies. Put out and perturbed. Suffice to say, I got upgraded just fine and everything is working like a charm now, ready to get slogged down by another five years of chaff. All I can say is this: Mac had better not come out with another OS upgrade anytime soon because Ham may not survive it.

I was an accomplice in my own frustration.

~ Peter Shaffer

Into the Darkness...

As expected with any Ham–induced sweeping overhaul that entailed my participation, events that ensued over Memorial Day Weekend inspired Hammies. As for the aforementioned overhaul, it entailed an office revamp with a new Internet home network. I don't understand a single bit of it, other than the concept of "cable," so let's just say it was a major production.

 

(Above) Here's a Hammie with hubby's expression as he untangled the thick matte of computer cables I'd woven together over the years. The phrases, "Dear God!," and "How can you live like this?!" were heard repeatedly throughout the process.

Now here's the kicker: to construct this upgraded system, hubby had to crawl around in the crawlspace—under the house. This isn't something he's prone to do and, in fact, he dreads it so much, he's never done it before.

You see, his ancient and infernal nemesis resides there in vast, seething colonies, just waiting for the opportune moment to lurch forward to deflesh him.

Spiders.

The sheer loathing and revulsion he bears for these creatures is nothing short of astonishing. If I had a dime for every time I've had to leap to the defense of a tiny eight-legged cowering creature, I'd have bought us a trip to Antarctica where there are no spiders.

This is what a spider looks like to me.

This is what a spider looks like to Ham.

Now I should mention that I have this annoying tendency to blurt out highly inappropriate comments that just pop into my head. Inconveniently, if a moment is amusing (to me), my internal filter spontaneously malfunctions and out the comment comes. And believe me when I tell you that these thoughts are truly funny—but only to me.

So as my dear hubby spent a goodly amount of the morning psychologically preparing himself, he took a deep breath with braced trepidation in his eyes, steadying himself to enter The Den Of The Beast—and out my mouth blurts, "I wonder if you'll run into Shelob down there."

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground. 

~ Miguel De Cervantes

Muddy Mischief

You did...wha...WHAT?!

When making sundry clay items there’s always leftover clay. Not quite enough to make another tile or magnet, but too much to just hang onto indefinitely. So a couple of weeks ago, as I was fiddling with a leftover blob, this little guy took shape (above).

My husband, whom I call "Ham," has a very expressive face with an equally expressive voice to go with it. The combined effect drives me dizzy with delight, to the point that even when he’s—shall we say—excessively perturbed, I’m giddy with internal glee. Not that I don’t take him seriously, of course, but those expressions of his are just too priceless to toss aside. And one of the hazards of being married to an artist is that it’s just as easy to become the hapless victim subject as it is to be the innocent bystander spousal support.

So as this little clay guy materialized in my fingers, an idea popped into my head, as ideas invariably do, "Why not capture a Hammy–moment?" 

What I mean by "Hammy–moment" is a snapshot of one of hubby's mercurial expressions in response to my seemingly–endless shenanigans. It seems I have a knack for eliciting a barrage of expressions from him because—apparently—I do things that invite all sorts of incredulous reactions. Indeed, the man is a pillar of patience because, I do admit, I'm a bit of a whirlwind of catastrophic unpredictability. And thus a win–win situation was born: I'd use up the extra clay and have fun to boot. And I shall call them Hammies.

The first Hammie is pictured above, wearing hubby’s expression when he’d discovered I’d opened up the house to the beautiful spring day, but left the central heating on. All day.

And here are Hammies #2 and #3—I gleaned two Hammies from one incident! I couldn't get Netflix to work on the tube all day and asked hubby to "make it go" when he got home (him being an IT guy). He fiddled with the machine, and then the settings and then finally called our Internet–provider tech support, spending about 45 minutes hashing things out with them to no avail…

Above is his expression when he'd discovered—after all that trouble—that the problem was that the wall switch had been turned off. By me. After he'd told me about a million times never to turn off the wall switch. There's some highly technical reason why the wall switch controls the TV hook-ups, but I promptly forgot and, of course, flipped it off. I couldn't even remember the reason why…I just remembered the wall switch was important so I flipped it off. Note to self: don't work in a nuclear power plant.

And (above) here's his expression immediately after the initial shock of the unfortunate discovery. A grumble went with it as well as a reminder, for the one-millionth-and-one time, not to turn off the wall light switch.

Look for gaggles of Hammies popping up for sale in my stores from time to time, an ode to an endlessly suffering and infinitely lovable man.

We have an infinite number of reasons to be happy, and a serious responsibility not to be serious.

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi