Coffee heat rising

Angst

And the Evening Not to Be Outdone by the Day…

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So I come rolling in to the ‘Hood from choir along about 9:30 p.m. and see, buzzing over the southwestern precincts, a low-flying and very angry-looking cop helicopter. He’s in hot pursuit of someone, apparently fleeing down Conduit of Blight Boulevard. But he’s not alone. To the north and also to the west, another cop copter is hovering over my old house, scanning the intersection of Conduit of Blight and Gangbanger’s Way.

By the time I get the car stashed in the garage and the pooch out in the side yard to pee, the dragonfly to the south is circling Conduit of Blight and Main Drag South, and the one to the north is over the crummy apartments and the senior-citizen trailer park above Gangbanger’s. Wring out the dog to the lovely serenade of buzzing helicopter engines, fly back inside, and lock the doors.

🙂

Welcome home!

It’s never boring around this place.

How Much Time, Lord…

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…is freaking wasted wrestling with computer software?

This afternoon, in one tiny household in the middle of one faceless city parked in the middle of a far-flung desert: three hours. That’s this afternoon alone.

I’ve lost track of the number of hours I’ve spent on the phone with Apple Support, to say nothing of the number of hours consumed by driving back and forth to Apple stores, by trying to figure out a problem by myself, by reconstructing lost data…ohhhh good grief.

Seriously: the Apple Support folks are a godsend. Without them, by now I would have picked up a number of expensive gadgets and thrown them across the room, to collide at a high velocity with a wall.

Which, one might speculate, would be counterproductive.

These computers we all have, all the manifold devices most of us tote around with us: they’re wonderful devices. They allow us to perform feats of data entry and calculation that would have consumed our lives had we tried to do them with a typewriter or an adding machine or a spreadsheet. This is because they do these tasks at outrageous speed, with little need for thought from the user.

So….why does riding herd on the damn things still consume our lives?

It is Saturday evening. A weekend. Remember those? Do you remember them as “free times”? I sure do: once upon a time you didn’t spend your weekends working.

Today I was on the phone with Apple from 3 in the afternoon until 6 — three hours — trying to figure out why Apple’s iCloud keeps nagging me that something is wrong. Wrong? Wrong with a password, we surmise. Between me and the two excellent gents I worked with, we changed my passwords at least three times, in three different venues. Finally we got online and got iCloud to accept the result…only to find that iCloud decided to quit sending my email to my computers.

The second of said gents, gazing upon the little mystery through a direct connection to my computer, quietly performed a bit of prestidigitation and…zap! Undid whatever was done and disappeared both the conundrum and the endlessly nagging, pointless messages.

In the course of this, I lost track of what we were doing, became hopelessly confused, thought I had lost the new passwords, discovered they were not lost after all, and then realized…waitaminit…these passwords we’re using that are now magically working? They’re the same damn passwords we started out with! And yea verily, they’re still all different.

That’s right. We spent three hours farting around and ended up right where we were at the outset. Only with the software inexplicably working.

For the nonce. We’ll see what it’s doing by the break of day.

Here’s what I think about this:

Yes. The 21st century’s astonishing technology does speed our work miraculously. Makes it easier to perform, by far. Makes our product look far more professional than most of us used to be able to produce with a typewriter and a photocopier and a calculator. BUT….no savings in work time ensues.

Vast numbers of hours may be saved in the performance of routine and mind-numbing tasks. But do we use that saved time in worthwhile pursuits like watching soap operas and shopping for underwear? Nooooo….

Hell, no! Any and all free time is devoured by learning new and unnecessary changes in the software and hardware, by trying to keep the software running, and by figuring out and fixing whateverthefuck is wrong when the damn things go down. In fact, I’d venture to say most of us spend more time working, when you add in the time required to learn, relearn, and re-relearn the endlessly morphing technology and in keeping it running, than we ever did at work with our antediluvian tools.

So confusing and baffling are these ubiquitous devices that even the experts get confused. Two of them, over the past few weeks, have told me that the reason for the mysterious nuisance messages from iCloud was that the passwords on my two Mac computers are different. The key, they felt, lay in syncing passwords. Ideally, I gathered, the same password should be used for both computers. And possibly it should be used for iCloud, too.

After all that wrestling to make this happen, after finding a gigantic glowing golden FAIL at the end of that rainbow, this evening the guy who answered the phone at Apple said…well…noooo… The computers’ passwords do not have to be the same.

Make up your minds, guys!

This one, it appears, was right. We ended up with different passwords for the MacBook, the aging iMac, and iCloud…and with the click of a couple of buttons on his ends, he magically disappeared the iCloud problem.

What the problem ultimately was, I have no clue. Nor do I want to have a clue.

THIS is not what I got a Ph.D. in English literature and history for…

Cranky as a Cat….

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Ever feel out of sorts…like…all day? It’s what my father used to call “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” {gronk!} Irrationally crabby, cranky, and…mad as a cat.

That’s my State of Mind of the Day.

What has brought about this predicament?

Mostly (I suspect) being forced to jump through a series of expensive hoops to replace the scratched lenses in my glasses, gouged up when I tripped over a busted chunk of sidewalk and fell on my face, in the dark.The insult of having to buy new prescription lenses is much exaggerated by the longstanding US law that requires prescription lens users to get new eye exams and new lenses — to the tune of a couple hundred bucks and two to four hours of their time — every year. It’s been about two months over a year since I bought the excellent glasses I now have and that I have exactly zero desire to replace.

And it absolutely positively infuriates me that I’m being made to spend several hundred bucks on an unnecessary eye exam for the privilege of spending 60 bucks on a new pair of lenses. This is just fuckin’ stupid and insulting. Let ME decide when I need a new vision exam…puh-leeeze!

But of course, if we all did that, our behavior would not enrich anyone, would it?

So today I had to trudge to Costco, sit around waiting to be seen (a half-hour or so after the appointed hour), dork my way through another eye exam, then line up at the glasses counter and present the resulting totally unnecessary, utterly redundant prescription to the unhappy counter attendant, fork over my glasses, and wait a week or ten days to get a new pair that works.

Just pisses me off no end.

You should be able to call on the phone, say, “Hey! I need a new pair of glasses in that prescription you have in your records!” and get it. Sure, let the optician say “Wellll, but don’t you think you really should, if you have any sense at all, update your prescription?” And leave it to the customer to decide yea or nay.

So that set me off on the wrong foot. The annoyed foot.

The time-fucking-wasting foot.

Moving on, this morning dawned clear with mare’s tails… The latter usually a clue to incoming rain. A dark streak of smoke blackened the western sky — fire, apparently. Brushfire? House fire? Another business burning down?

By midday the sky was gray, and it still is. Apparently rain is unlikely. But it’s cold and it’s glum.

On the way home from the Costco Optical Scam, I stopped by the (legal! keep your hat on!) marijuana dealer’s place, located in the Home Depot’s parking lot. Naturally they no longer carry the CBD cream that has helped so surprisingly with the spavined paw and arm. The clerk kept trying to sell me stuff with menthol in it. Something about “I simply hate the odor of menthol!” just does NOT register with some people. Neither does “I don’t want to smell like (fill in the blank: menthol, lavender, rosemary, or effin’ Nuit de Paris.) Grrrrrrr…

If they had what I want, I couldn’t figure it out, so left empty-handed. And annoyed.

Moving on…the cleaning lady was still here by the time I got home, of course. By now it was after 1 p.m.. Having enjoyed a light breakfast around 7 a.m., I was damn hungry and did not want anyone underfoot while I was trying to cook a full meal.

So opted the meal in favor of a few slices of avocado, a couple slices of cheese, and a slice of bread. Ugh.

It’s after 4 p.m. She just strolled out the door, leaving in her wake in incredibly, UNBELIEVABLY clean house. How she does that escapes me.

So one can’t feel too, toooo crabby…except on reflecting that one would like to have a nap (having as usual not slept well at night) and one would really, truly like not to get ripped off a little extra when one’s glasses get scratched up through no fault of one’s own.

Thus one could argue that I yam indeed irrationally crabby.

Ohhhhh…to frost the cookies, I forgot that tonight is choir practice. Can I possibly, possibly squeeze in a couple hours’ nap between now and 7 p.m.?????

Hallelujah! Another miracle…in spite of it all

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A couple of sweet little miracles occurred today…

This morning I had to traipse to the Mayo for yet another allergy test. We’ve ascertained that, despite earlier indications to the contrary, I am not allergic to ibuprofen.

Said earlier blessing has relieved Yrs Truly of substantial pain from the bunged-up wrist, elbow and shoulder. Yea verily, it is like unto a miracle.

So today I had an appointment, mid-morning, to schlep out there — waaaayyyyy out there — to be tested for the allergy to penicillin that was diagnosed before my son was born, some 43 years ago.

Yes. for the past 43+ years, we have proceeded on the assumption that a rash incident on a prescription for penicillin indicated an allergy to said penicillin. Even though the Little Woman tried to convince the Big Bad Doctor that the rash in question (and the fever, and the array of miseries) looked a whoooole lot like German measles, a childhood ailment she had escaped by being largely isolated from children throughout her formative years.

It’s a long, long, long way from the Funny Farm to the Mayo Clinic. Nevertheless, I figure the effort is worth it. So off I go, shortly after dawn has cracked.

I get HALFWAY ACROSS THE VALLEY on the journey to the clinic — planning to go, on the way back home, by the upscale Costco to set in motion the process to get the glasses fixed (the glasses that were gouged up when I fell flat on my face in the dark over a busted chunk of sidewalk), and then by the upscale Fry’s to pick up enough food for another week — and then it dawned on me:

I forgot my credit-card holder! 

Sheee-ut! The driver’s license is hidden in the car. But…but…no credit card: no groceries. No Costco card: no way to get into Costco’s eyeglass department.

I swear, the older I get, the less competent I get. In particular, the fewer thoughts I can keep in mind at any given time. Admittedly, there were several things to remember:

  • Charge up computer, hope it will last for the time I have to sit around and twiddle thumbs
  • Leave money and a note for cleaning lady
  • Pick up mess so cleaning lady can find a surface to clean
  • Empty coffee grounds on plants outside
  • Wash French press so cleaning lady doesn’t clog the drain by dumping coffee grounds down the sink
  • Write shopping list
  • Dump trash so cleaning lady can haul it out to the alley
  • Wash up, comb hair after a fashion (which is no fashion at all…)
  • Paint face
  • Hide the quarter I use to pop open endlessly annoying eye-shadow and eyebrow pencil cases (otherwise cleaning lady tries to put it “away,” where I can’t find it)
  • Correspond with financial adviser
  • Be sure dog is in house and safe
  • Get credit cards, drop in pocket
  • Find car keys
  • Remember to load computer into the car
  • Forget shopping list

Yeah. None of these things seem to be items that I’m competent to handle anymore… Well, except for the last one.

Speaking of Financial Adviser: I’d asked him if he felt we could spring loose another few thou’ so I can trade in the hated Venza on some older car that still has intelligible controls. And by the way, did he know a car broker?

He wrote back and said the partners there use the owner of Gateway Chevrolet for advice and consent about buying cars. Now…I wouldn’t have another Chevy if you gave it to me…but if he can do actual car brokering, well…maybe.  So asked him to get us in touch. Let’s see what he has to say.

The guys at the Scottsdale Business Association have a fella they like to use…but he gives me the whim-whams. Why? Because he owns a used-car lot. Duh! Guys! That’s not a car broker. That’s a car salesman.

…..

A-N-N-N-D after two hours of cooling my heels in the allergy testing department, we now know I’m not allergic to penicillin or amoxycillin.

No. Not at all.

We’ve proceeded on the assumption that I am allergic, because WAAAYYYYYY back in the day, before the Kid was born, I developed a rash and a fever after taking some penicillin prescribed by the good Dr. Daley. I surmised that I was enjoying a case of German measles (the symptoms exactly coinciding with that ailment). But when I suggested that to Dr. Daley, who hates it when women self-diagnose, he said nooooooooo, gimme a break! You’re allergic to penicillin.

And into the permanent medical record that went.

A few years go by and I decide to get pregnant. Now the gynecologist does a titer test and discovers that yea verily, I had German measles.

Sooooo….it’s unlikely that the penicillin allergy theory is correct, but no one has wanted to take a chance on it.

Meanwhile, last time I was out in the Mayo’s precincts, I learned that I’m NOT allergic, after all, to ibuprofen. Which was a kind of a miracle… On the way home, I bought a bottle of the stuff. Just the first tiny dose the Mayo folks gave me here, by way of kicking off their test, made the sore hand feel soooooooo much better! And a pill a day for about five days made that sprain one whole helluva lot more tolerable. In fact, I suspect the pain relief (or something associated with it) helped the injury to heal faster.

Life is getting a whole lot simpler, really fast.

😀

 

Ever have one of those *CLICK* moments?

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No, this doesn’t mean a Gloria Steinem moment of insight into the Oppressiveness of the Masculine Culture. By *CLICK* moment, I mean a why didn’t i think of this one before dawning of the light.

I’m sitting here contemplating the damn car and realizing that it’s so alien that trying to operate it is like trying to drive a flying saucer. In the 15 years between the time I bought the late, great Toyota Sienna and the time I got bamboozled into buying the endlessly annoying Toyota Venza, cars have changed so much that I truly don’t know how to drive anymore.

Out of the blue, it struck me that what I need here is driving lessons. I need to learn to drive again, the way I learned to drive in high school: with a driving instructor sitting next to me in the front seat.

Turns out there are driving schools here in lovely uptown Phoenix. They’re not cheap: instruction runs from $250 for a single three-hour drive to $645 for 16 to 18 hours of instruction. For an extra $250, you can get some sort of “MVD evaluation waiver” that apparently gets you out of some harassment of senior drivers by the state.

I have to renew my driver’s license this spring, as well as get the national ID card. This will be a major PITA if I’m required to prove I can still drive…especially since driving this goddamn car is like trying to drive a flying saucer.

Yesterday I did chat with Wonder-Mechanic Chuck and his guys about the idea of trading the Starship Enterprise in on a Subaru. They thought that was a less than perfect scheme. Chuck says all newer cars are now pretty much the same: brain-banging frustrating and complicated to learn.

Soooo….oh-kayyy…. If the problem is that you need to learn how to drive all over again, wouldn’t the logical solution be simply to do what you did in high school: take a driving course?

Duh!

Here’s an outfit that employs retired law enforcement officers. By golly! What could be more perfect?

So I emailed them and hope to hear from them on Monday.  While I’m not thrilled at the prospect of forking over $250 to learn how to drive all over again, as a practical matter I can afford it…and it would be worth it if I could get an experienced driving instructor to help me get acclimated with the Brave New World of driving technology.

Meanwhile, slo-o-o-o-w-l-y ad not very surely I’m getting the elaborate new landline phone to work.

Yesterday morning I realized that what I need to do is ONE. THING. AT. A. TIME. That is, don’t try to set it up with all its glorious functions in one swell foop. Instead, engage only one function at a time.

So: yesterday I plugged it in. I did NOT plug in the beloved CPR Call Blocker. Just plugged the damn phone and its handsets into the phone line and the electric line.

This alone took some doing. But without trying to connect the Call Blocker device, the system works fine. I think. When I call the land line number on my cell phone, it does ring through. And I’ve been able to talk with SDXB and with WonderAccountant…so apparently the basic function now works.

Today I succeeded in figuring out how to program often-called numbers into the “phone book” function. PITA of the first water, but it does seem to work. I think.

In addition, it appears that the Panasonic’s built-in call blocker also works, in much the same way. But how it’s doing that without my having programmed it escapes me. I’ve only received one nuisance call in the past two days; normally upwards of a dozen come in. That may just be coincidence…though I haven’t had a day without an unending series of pest calls in many, many months. Years, actually.

If it develops that this is just a fluke, then on Monday I’ll call the CPR folks — they have killer customer service!! — and ask how to get the thing attached to the CPR device without disabling the phone itself.

So of those two frustrations — car and phone — I feel a little better about one of them. As for the car, we shall see whether this driving school outfit will let me use their three-hour training class as a device to learn how to drive all over again. They say they have a special class for “seniors,” which leads me to suspect this will not be the first time they’ve encountered my little learning challenge.

Life and Death in Dystopia

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A friend remarked on the dystopic nature of our lives as they are affected by the ubiquity and inescapability of computers, whose presence has expanded to fill every cubic centimeter of existence. And how, brother!

Sometimes I wonder if the digitization of day-to-day life creates stresses and psychological disjuncts may be responsible for the madness we see around us — specifically, for the ever-increasing number of shootings by crazies. Life was frustrating back in the day…and scary, too — remember those air-raid drills? Everyone had at least one gun in the house — or at any rate, that was true of the blue-collar class in which I grew up.

But no one went out and shot up public spaces.

The mindset has changed, and I think that has happened because of the deluge of passive stimulation, of violent games and TV and movies and music and “entertainment” and hostile speech accessible 24/7, and because of the constant background demand that you respond to negative stimulation through social media, gaming, and incoming images and narratives. We’re blitzed with constant aural and psychological noise, much of it hostile and violent.

And there’s no viable escape from it. Remember when a little kid could sit outside and watch the clouds float by? Imagine a kid doing that today…right!

I mean…when I was a kid, I hated school. I deeply loathed my classmates, the obnoxious little twits who made my life miserable for years on end. I hated my fifth- & sixth-grade teacher (same bitch….she “passed” into the 6th grade along with us, to my horror!). But forgodsake, it never entered my fevered little brain to kill them. Though I would have been pleased if they’d all been dispatched to the other world, making that a DIY project was not even remotely imaginable.

Now we have the lovely situation in which we find ourselves. Today it not only is imaginable, it’s becoming commonplace. And a nutty, disaffected kid like me can find instruction and encouragement on a machine that brings the world to her bedroom.

Result: an ordinary neighborhood church has an armed security team(!!!) who must leap into action to save the lives of what could have been scores of parishioners. Look at this video of the latest outrage (if you don’t mind having your hair stand on end): the guy had some kind of long gun. You can’t see it clearly in this video, but it looks like it’s probably a semi-automatic.

The most striking thing here is that these guys were prepared. The one who shot the sh!thead was a former FBI agent. It wasn’t that a few parishioners happened to pack heat into church: the church had an organized, armed security team. 

WTF!! We’re in an era where churches and synagogues need armed security guards. Sorta like schools do. And movie theaters. And nightclubs.

Y’know, I can’t even count how many times I’ve sat in that choir loft and thought how easy it would be for a crazy to get a gun into the sanctuary below us. At this time of year, when it’s cold, everyone is wearing jackets…making it easy to hide a pistol.  There are four entrances to that place, not counting the two stairwells that lead to the organ loft. Anyone could carry in a pistol, take a seat, and bide his time. When he was good and ready, he’d have a large roomful of sitting ducks. If he could get into the choir loft (to which there are two entrances), he could shoot at people from above, though choir members would probably interfere with him. Or he could shoot us all in a matter of seconds.

What a world we live in!