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Late to the party

was her m.o., modus operandi, but not by choice. She tried to keep up. Really, she did! Mabel bought a computer at age 60 and let her grandchildren teach her how to call up A.I.M., then My Space, and email programs, and they got her a digital camera for Christmas. Now she could send photos within minutes of snapping them. Her daughter in Venezuela could see the October leaves and the barren trees of November and the first lightly falling flakes of white stuff, postcard perfect. This is what you are missing, Emmy. Here's your old widowed mother in the pumpkin patch; Tommy, my boy, here's the first pie out of the oven. Sadly, the miracles of cyberspace did not yet offer a way to convey the heavenly aromas through the ether, or the satellite signals or the phone line or the cable wires.

See, she knew a few things, Mabel did. Words like "modem" and "blockchain," cyberspace, telecommute, Skype, words Harry didn't live long enough to learn alongside her. Ah, Harry. What good was it for only one of them to live to age 90?

~Esc~, Escape,

was her favorite button. When the screen froze up and nothing else worked, the Escape button did. And if that failed, there was a "hard shut down," or "hard" something or other, the manual killing of the computer. Then, one touch of a button, a "hard" restart, and the computer came back to life. Most of the time, the resurrection was clean--no bugs, no glitches, returning from the dead.

It was somewhat like the unplugging of the TV. How many times had Harry fiddled with dials and diodes, never thinking to check the Number One Most-Obvious trick: make sure his wife hadn't unplugged the TV overnight.

"Not even a fraction of a penny in electricity is being saved," he would sputter at her.

Oh Harry. What she wouldn't give to have the ether, the cyber connections, bring him back again.

The escape button - she would push it right now if only it would get her unstuck, unfrozen, from this big old house within walking distance of a school no child of hers attended anymore. Really, it was past time to sell this place to a young family who'd enjoy the location and the rooms, too many rooms, too much space for one old woman. Just sell, she would, but the offspring kept saying "Noooo," they wanted to come "home" once a year and have everyone all under one roof again, plus all the grandkids and spouses, with Ma cooking dinner and cleaning up after them.

Sentimental journeys for them, just more work for her.

The parties went on, far from home, without her, birthdays, graduations, too many of them and too far away for her to travel to them all. She stayed back as guardian of the childhood home, the offspring's fortress against time, never mind that Harry was no longer here and she did all his maintenance work in addition to her cooking and cleaning.

Oh Harry! Harry! To push that button, and call you up again!

She could call up photos, thanks to that digital camera, which alleviated the need for boxes of desiccated photo albums in the closet.

The party was over

for the offspring. Mabel made up her mind that enough was enough.

She stood in the front yard with her digital camera when the realtor put up the For Sale sign. Smiling, she took her first selfie. Mabel captioned the photo, 'The house, not Mabel, is For Sale,' and posted it.

The party starts now

for Mabel!

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===== 15 minutes ====

Hey, for me, this is a record!!
Still a cheat, though. I've caught a few typos. I'm formatting a wee bit. I'm adding pixabay images. But, but, but, I had to try harder to follow the rules today, in honor of the spirit of this project, founded by @mariannewest and @improve, launched one year ago. The mission is clearly spelled out for all to see (and me to ignore, mea culpa!):

Introduction to the Daily Prompt 5 minute Freewrite

Freewrite - what the heck is that you ask. Well, it is the opposite of a well thought out, highly edited, and grammatically correct piece of writing.

Freewriting is to set a timer for a certain amount of time and write. Without stopping. Without correcting anything. Without worrying if what we write is good or bad. Nobody cares.

The point of the freewriting session is to get out of our heads and tap into our creative self - allow things to flow. Sometimes, great writing will result. Well, and sometimes - not. The point is to get into a daily (or however often you can) habit of writing.

My apologies for appropriating your images, Marianne!

Thank you, everyone at #freewritehouse, fellow writers and readers, for this life-changing project!

Today's prompt: Day 365: 5 Minute Freewrite: Saturday - Wait!! 365 = 1 Year!!! Party Time!!