<p>Actual email conversation from DS1’s time at a summer program:</p>
<p>Me:
Hey there,
Is your cell phone broken/missing? We called a couple of times and it goes straight to VM. If so, do you need the calling card codes?</p>
<p>DS:
The cell phone is perfectly intact, and should be charged, but I haven’t touched it in days. (It’s on my nightstand.) </p>
<p>Well, I guess I was told!!!</p>
<p>Third email of semester arrived this afternoon (I’m shocked.). </p>
<p>“Mom, that Spain thing is a little more than I thought. Add $550.<br>
Don’t forget, I’m going to X’s cabin with the guys for fall break.”</p>
<p>that was it. </p>
<p>Now, Let’s play the “Mothers and Fathers Answer” game. What do you THINK my response might have been?</p>
<p>Hint: 2 letters, first N, second O.</p>
<p>*** that N-O was originally to the Spain deal, but I’m considering a no-go on the fall break deal too. (Just kidding, but don’t tell him)</p>
<p>My fav email from S was last spring. The subject line was “RIP Latitude C840: April 30, 2003 - June 11, 2007”. The text of the email was “On Monday, June 11, at approximately 11:30 AM, XXXX’s Dell Latitude C840 suffered a motherboard failure and died. Laptop, as he was known, experienced many health problems in recent months. In March, Laptop underwent a double operation to replace aging CD-ROM and hard drives, and a few days ago underwent a risky Ubuntu Linux installation procedure. Laptop gave every indication of a successful and speedy recovery; the causes for his motherboard failure remain unknown. Laptop’s death came as a shock to the scientific community: in his dying moments, Laptop was busy demonstrating a much-sought model of protein aggregation. His death will me sorely missed.”</p>
<p>I could not resist sending an e-card sympathy card. My nerd S loved my response. Touche!!</p>
<p>^^ Hilarious!</p>
<p>Am I the only one who hears from her college D EVERY single day by cell phone, most times twice a day—just to say hi and chat? She’s been doing this since freshman year (she’s a thesis(ing) senior this year). She also calls her Dad once a day. </p>
<p>She loves her school and can hardly believe that her halcyon college days are almost over. So, it’s not because she’s unhappy and in need of support most of the time. She’s just always been somewhat of a momma’s girl and daddy’s little girl, too. Our son, also, is very open and communicative. He is very forthcoming about his “love life” (girl he’s mooned over for more than a year, who now seems to be toying with his affections) with not only me and his dad, but my father (his grandpa), too. I’m starting to get the distinct impression that our situation is a bit unusual.</p>
<p>massive LOL!</p>
<p>Wow, poetsheart! You are so lucky. I am jealous.</p>
<p>The Mom! Nice use of fencing terminology!</p>
<p>Clairification: Not LOL regarding Poets lovely D staying in touch so well. LOL is regarding the “medical” death of laptop a couple of post ago.</p>
<p>My son and I IM every few days. If I urgently want to get ahold of him, I leave a note on his Livejournal threatening to post to his college’s LJ asking if anyone has seen him lately. :-)</p>
<p>What do we talk about? Well he’s not asking me for money – he has a full ride and has more money in the bank than I do, by a factor of 10! 
Mostly we talk about what he’s studying. Much of his current curriculum is within one of my areas of academic expertise, so we talk about his ideas about the subject matter, my ideas, stuff like that. We also talk about weird relationship stuff! He got into talking to a future classmate that he met on Facebook over the summer, and he though he would end up dating her, but they didn’t click, and <em>now she’s dating his roommate</em>! So he sometimes a little annoyed about that. I have to remind him that he chose to go to a small college, and I told him when he was looking that stuff like this happens more at small colleges. </p>
<p>We also talk about what his younger sister is up to, visit logistics, stuff like that. One of the advantages of being an EFC=0 parent is that he knows better than to ask for money for trips or things like that.</p>
<p>TheMom…I loved the PC obit. Here’s a shout out to all the moms of nerds! D has big poster of Linux penguin in her room (along with the requisite Einstein poster, action figure and plush doll; and the Monty Python poster). She has some elaborate name for her Laptop, though…some greek name for a twin figure, after she had to partition her laptop so that she could run Linux and grumble,grumble Windows-to-appease-the-university-gods. In her spare time, she even manages to appear somewhat normal.</p>
<p>Astro, I can totally relate to the partitioned laptop. S prefers Linux, as do all real nerds, but must be able to conform occasionally by using windows. S uses as much open source software as possible just to avoid using any microsoft products.</p>
<p>I love it! Makes my kids seem normal, even though they drive me crazy!<br>
P.S. - Threatening S1 last year with pulling him out of his dream school for our fabulous state school (which is what H and I had always thought was what would be our reality anyway) got his attention. I sometimes even get calls for no reason now! Me: Why did you call? S1: Just to say hi. Me: Really???!!! Just takes that reality check that there’s no law that says we have to mortgage our lives for them in order to get them in line.</p>
<p>Mathson has a partitioned laptop too, and was also careful to get one without Vista. But do your kids use a Dvorak keyboard? You can type faster!</p>
<p>Open Office is my friend. My laptop just came with a trial version of Office, when it ran out, I just got OO instead. I’ve only found one incompatibility so far.</p>
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</p>
<p>Heh. I got my boyfriend a gentoo stuffed animal for Christmas one year, because that’s our preferred linux distro.</p>
<p>DS has named our various computers’ partitions and printers after mathematicians. (My printer is named Gauss.) He REALLY wants a Dvorak board, but his younger brother would kill him (they share a box). Next year when DS leaves, I’m sure he’ll get one. He’s also going to Mac when he leaves us so he can Linux in peace.</p>
<p>My son’s keyboard is the regular keyboard, he’s just reprogrammed it to be Dvorak. That means none of the rest of us can type on it if he doesn’t change the settings. He’s a better touch typer than I am, I need to peek at numbers and the stuff over the numbers still.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize they can reprogram the keyboard! I know he had seen a Dvorak on ThinkGeek, and a couple of his friends have them. He flies on a keyboard – the only one of us who can touch-type. But, oooh, that would be snarky to reprogram the keyboard and not tell anyone!</p>
<p>My S did this back in HS. I remember there was an icon which allowed me to switch back.</p>