Saturday, January 3: The Mesh Network

With the basement setup nearly complete, today Andrew turned his attention to our wi-fi, a big question mark and issue. The wi-fi whatever whatever is hooked up to some kind of cable in our family room, and now it has to be reconnected to something somewhere else. Andrew explained the issue with a word salad that included words like cable, tower, router, mesh network, wi-fi, internet, TV, and more. This is actually a serious problem because we need to have wi-fi on every floor of our house. My home office is in the attic, Andrew's office and the girls' bedroms (where they do homework) are on the second floor, and our smart TV (which requires wi-fi or cable or something like that to function) is in the basement. Andrew and I work from home quite a bit, and having strong wi-fi is essential. 

Anyway, the only phrase that stood out for me in all this as Andrew grimly described the complexity of the project was "mesh network," and I asked a barrage of absurd follow-up questions about whether Andrew wanted me to get the kids' old weaving looms down from the attic to weave the new mesh, and whether he had a Michael's coupon for the yarn he'd have to buy. He had no patience. He had even less patience when the kids took my joke and ran with it, going into great detail with Andrew about making sure he got the right kind of blue yarn for the mesh--bright blue, of course, since that's the color of hyperlinks. 

Later, when Andrew announced he was going to set up a second mesh network (or something), instead of responding directly to him I yelled, "Hey Greta--go get your crochet needles!" and then asked Andrew if he would be using worsted weight or blanket yarn. Lucia and I nearly fell over from laughing. 

These kids. They are too funny. They picked up the thread (!) of my absurd joke without even blinking. 

Aside from irritating Andrew with this day-long riff about weaving a mesh network, we had a fun day. Andrew and Lucia went for a run in the morning; we played Century Spice Road at our new game-table setup in the Long Room (ie, our kitchen table is now squeezed in there), Greta finished a puzzle. We went to Barnes & Noble tonight so the kids could spend their Christmas gift cards, then had dinner at Shake Shack. The girls and I watched Stranger Things and This Is Us to finish off the day.