All Free Wi-Fi is not Equal

I have been traveling for 10 days now, and every night when I find a motel I make sure it offers free Wi-Fi. All but one of my motels has been in the $60 to $100 range and all of them have had signal that varied between low and non-existant. The one motel I paid $130 for (it was Moving-In week at MSU in Bozeman and I was lucky to find a bed anywhere) had a good signal. So it is clear, you get what you pay for.

Starbucks is my drink of choice and traveling through Montana can be trying for those of us Seattleites addicted to their particular taste & menu. There aren't a dozen Starbucks locations in all of Montana and I have that many within 5 miles of my home. I know Starbucks is an expensive way to quench your thirst, but I also know that when I sat down at the Missoula Starbucks on North Reserve the free Wi-Fi signal read excellent. Same thing at the Starbucks on South Reserve. Evidently coffee is like free Wi-Fi...you get what you pay for.

None of this would be so important if the replacement phone I got from Sprint two months ago hadn't crapped out as soon as I crossed the border into Montana. Using my little notebook and the nightly free Wi-Fi was my only way to communicate with home - where my 97 yr old mother is failing and my family worries about a 67 yr old woman traveling alone with a thirteen year old Toyota. I passed 120,000 miles on this trip and took took my Camry to the top of more than one mountain and it never missed a beat.

So the verdict is in...Starbucks & Toyota - YES!  Sprint - NO! Free Wi-Fi - you get what you pay for.

March Madness

Whimsy has no place in my Mother’s life.  The fact that it has a very large place in mine is something that she has never come to terms with.  She is, above all things, a practical person.  For example, ask her what she thinks about birthdays…”Well, it’s just another day, really.”

As you can imagine, this has caused some strain in our relationship at times, but more  often just a great gap of understanding – like when I am trying to explain to her what I love about Terry Pratchett, or why I paid good money for a pair of earrings with a clay carrot on one ear and a peapod on the other.

But every spring, when the forsythias are in bloom, I think of something she did about 45 years ago when I was away at college.  And that usually leads me to thinking about something she did on my 16^th birthday.  And that makes me wonder if there was a pocket of impracticality, of whimsy, hidden somewhere deep inside.  Let me explain…

One of the first shrubs to burst into bloom here in the Pacific Northwest is the forsythia.  If there is one blooming, you can’t miss it – glorious yellow.  Not the loveliest shrub in general and very often pruned into a disaster, but glorious yellow branches that promise spring regardless of the temperature at the moment.  Smart folk cut long graceful branches as soon as you can see the bud and with just a day or two sitting in warm water you have brought spring into the house.

Now while the forsythia is coming into bud in Washington, snow still covers the ground in Montana.  So in my freshman year at Missoula, when I received an oddly shaped care package from home, I was amazed to find a carefully wrapped bunch of forsythia branches atop the batch of homemade cookies.  Two days later my dreary little dorm room had a burst of sunshine that brought tears to my eyes every time I walked into the room.  The only other time I was really homesick at school was when I got the measles.

The second memory is of sitting on the couch in the living room opening my 16^th birthday gift from my Mom.  Please note, no party, no family gathering, nothing special much except good wishes.  Mom prefaced the gift with a sort of mumbled statement about being a woman now and this was something every woman should have.  It was a lovely, if inexpensive, set of black lace underwear.  I am still shocked when I think of it.  I am pretty certain my mother herself never owned a matching set of black lace underwear and I can’t imagine her thinking a 16 year old had any need of such a thing.

I have been eternally grateful for those two lapses of practicality, or whimsy, or whatever you want to call it.  I treasure them each spring.  Now that I think of it, my birthday is in March, about when the forsythias bloom.  Perhaps there is something to that Mad as a March Hare business – for my Mother at least.