Butterflyisms 1
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Perhaps I should start at the beginning, now that I’m well into this blogging business.  Years ago, (8 to be exact), my husband and I moved to France for a year.  It turned into almost 3 (wonderful) years, but that’s a story for another time.  Butterfly continued to live in our guest house and hold down the fort, since my father was still alive at the time and residing in a convalescent home.

At the time, if you can recall, computer software was not as “user friendly” as it is today and even today we often want to kick the dang things through the nearest wall.  I was at wit’s end (and my wits aren’t very long to start with) trying, along with all the other moving-to-a-foreign-country-where-I-do-not-speak-the-language problems, to figure out how I was going to communicate affordably with Butterfly on a regular basis.

Enter the beast called the MailStationTM which solved all of our problems for the next several years.  It did not require her to learn to use a computer.  All it did was enable her to compose email and send/receive them – period.  Of course, she couldn’t surf the web, couldn’t receive attachments, couldn’t receive photos … but those were minor trade-offs when what we really needed to do was talk about problems around the place, or problems with Pops, problems with her, etc.  She could use it without anyone helping her, and that was the goal of that little project.

Eventually things became easier as I tracked down affordable long-distance calling plans, but nothing was ever cheaper than good ol’ email.

I started a daily habit of journaling my adventures in France and sending them to my mom.  I got my first digital camera and soon the journals became illustrated.  I would have to send my mom a non-illustrated version and ask my neighbor to print and deliver the illustrated version to her.  We’re talking very low-tech communications here!  Gradually friends and relatives learned about these missives and asked to be added to the email list. 

Butterfly wrote emails to me daily, too, whether or not she needed help with things going on around “Rancho Am Broko” (this was the name of one of my parents’ farms when I was growing up – I’ve since put the sign on our gate). They were often commentaries on what she read in the news or heard from folks in her traipsing around town.  I would always forward these tidbits to Electric Horseman and my good friend, Maureen, under the subject line “Your Daily Chuckle”.

Butterfly, as you might imagine, has a way with words (see “Rancho Am Broko” above).  In one short paragraph she can cover many, many topics.  And you might not have any idea what any of them are about if you haven’t lived with her for half a century.  She’ll reference things that happened to her while she was growing up, so if you haven’t heard that story half a dozen times, you’ll be totally lost.

Upon receiving their daily dose of Butterflyisms, Electric Horseman and Maureen would often write back and ask, “What did she mean by … blah blah blah?”  I would have to translate, because I was the only one who could interpret the Butterflyisms.  For the most part though, they were just classic “call ‘em as she sees ‘em” and who can’t appreciate that?

Throughout all of this email flying back and forth through cyberspace, many people kept suggesting I write a book.  Probably that is never going to happen, but I’m doing my best here.  I have toyed with the idea of doing something with Butterfly’s emails, because they are a hoot.  I have carefully preserved them and keep mulling that over in my little pea-brain.

The best tidbit that came out of all of this was when Maureen replied to one of the “Daily Chuckles” with this: she wrote back, “Your mom!  What a butterfly mind!”  I had never received a more perfect response and, as you now know, kept it tucked away for future use.

So, you ask, what has all of this blathering been leading up to?  I am now about to introduce you to Butterfly’s email (just a little tidbit, but it’ll give you the flavor), because she just about made me spit out my coffee this morning.  As usual, it was a carefully disguised email, which left me unprepared for its content.

I had sent her an email, one of those nonsense forwards with an attachment to open.  She apparently couldn’t get the attachment to open.  I saw her reply and thought, “Okay, she’s going to tell me that she thought that one was funny.”  But no, instead, as you’ll see, she told me about the problem she had with it, and then flitted (as butterflies do) on to a different subject:

I cannot get this one to “open”   Oh I forgot to tell you when I ate at Jack’s yesterday price of chicken sandwich went back to .99  It’s been 1.29 for ages. Gal said maybe it’s a Xmas special.  I think they found a huge box of frozen chicken and have to use it up.

We can only hope that she didn’t share that thought with them.  But knowing Butterfly like I do, I’m not counting on it.