So very accomplished

I accomplished several things today.

1. I set up my wifi. When I first moved back into my house after the deluge and subsequent repairs, I could not get on the internet at all. Then my co-worker educated me as to using my phone to create a wifi hotspot. I used this for a while. My phone would ding every few minutes with a message from my provider that I had used up my data but they'd added more at my expense. Eventually I realized (I'm slow on the uptake) that I could at least connect my laptop directly to the cable, and I did. So my laptop had internet access but my Kindle did not. Whenever I wanted to download a new Kindle book (which happens frequently) I either had to be at a place of business that offered wifi or use my phone again.

Part of my slowness in setting up my home wifi was ignorance. I had never set it up myself in the first place. My sister visited a few years ago and, discovering I had no wifi, went to Radio Shack, bought whatever was needed and set it up for me. She even set up a network name and password that would be ridiculously easy for me to remember.

When I had to vacate my home, at first I left my wifi, phone, etc. in place, thinking they could sit around during the process, but the workers ended up having to put them aside, so two phones for my landline, an external hard drive, a surge protector power strip, my wifi thingy, and a number of cords and cables ended up just bundled into a small wastepaper basket, where they became coated with dust. Really coated. So when I did come across them, I was reluctant to touch them, thinking that first I'd have to clean them off and then perhaps just be frustrated by being stupidly unable to set them up correctly.

But today I finally did it. I was motivated by the fact that I heard a good speaker on Friday and I wanted to buy her book, but my phone was being wonky and I couldn't get a mobile hotspot set up with it. So I decided I had to take on the wifi job. With wet rags and disinfectant wipes (or as we call them in my workplace "wipies") I got everything cleaned up, although it made my hands feel gross.

Then I found (to my relief) that it was ludicrously simple to plug everything in correctly. Easy on the brain, that is. Somewhat hard on the body when it came to getting down on the floor, crawling under my desk to plug and connect things, and then getting back up again. Try not to picture it.

2. I went to the vet and bought a renewal of my dog's medicine. I had a pill for today and one for tomorrow, which is a Sunday, when the vet's office will be closed, but none for Monday morning. My vet's office is open just until noon on Saturdays, so there was a good chance I'd forget to go get his meds on time. But I remembered. I rock. This medicine is called Denamarin, and it addresses my dog's liver problems. Without it, he gets sick and shivers and curls up and is miserable. With it, he is just as goofy as he always has been. He has to take it in the mornings before he eats, so it was important I remembered.

I'll spare you the lengthy account of what it takes to get a pill inside my dog.

3. I voted. My ballot came in the mail and I filled it all in this evening. I put it in its "security sleeve" and then in its mailing envelope. Tomorrow I can just drop it in the mail. I consider it my duty to vote my conscience.

Given my low spirits and general sense of exhaustion, lethargy, and acedia over the past year and more, accomplishing three things is a good sign that perhaps I am climbing out of an emotional hole. Does accomplishing things make me "accomplished"? Mr. Darcy might not think so.


   "It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are."

   "All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?"

   "Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished."

   "Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."

   "Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley.

   "Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."

   "Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."

   "Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."

   "All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

   "I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

   "Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?"

   "I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united."

   Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room.

   "Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, "is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art."

   "Undoubtedly," replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, "there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable."

   Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject.