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The first order of business was to get the laptop powered up. She lost the power adapter, and we bought a universal replacement -- and we had to call the manufacturer to figure out the polarity. That went smoothly, reasonably, except that the adapter tips were either too loose on the center pin of the power socket of the computer, or too loose in the hole. I got the concept to stick by calling the crucial power contact areas "the cervix" and "the g-spot". Did I mention that V is not very technical? She's also just a few years younger than my own mother, which is very amusing. I'm about her son's age. We evaded giving V her internet service with AOL; she went with Earthlink instead, and she feels so much better and less dirty.
We went to Fry's Electronics to exchange the power adapter and get me a serial-to-USB adapter for AzureBlue, along with several other geeky things. We wound up having large amounts of fun, looking at things, getting necessary things for making her very old computer functional in this decade. She learned a lot of things.
Our next stop was the grocery store, where we ran into
digitalambience. His forehead was bruised. His wife is still pregnant; their child is due any time now. He said that the story of his forehead was a long one. I should pester him about it over e-mail; I am one of the people who gets to give him a hard time about things, just because I've known him and he's Adam. What followed was a comic scamper about the local areas of Phoenix, looking for a food place or two that was still open. No one felt like cooking. We circled several blocks until V was exceptionally disoriented (despite being the driver). We wound up back near my apartment at a Subway, and had a delightful dinner with
shammash very interested in the proceedings. By the time 11:00 hit, V and I were both punchy, the modem was installed, the power cord was sort of working when on a level surface and not jostled, the USB card was not installed, the computer was online via modem, and I was cursing at the Palm Desktop software and the Yahoo! Intellisync software. That was on my machine; V still doesn't have her palmtop synching with her desktop yet. But it was bedtime.
This was a fairly ideal Christmas Eve. I got a few gifts for other household members, including
shammash and eris_raven. I had fun, and there was decent food and good company and a lot of laughter and happiness. 
