This week began with the Rose Parade and ended with party cleanup.

The Rose Parade was covered live on KTLA in Los Angeles and we watched that feed cast to the television instead of the commercial-ridden network broadcasts. Other than sorting medications for the week, did nothing on New Year's Day except eat junk food and watch Galaxy Quest. The day ended on a satisfactory note with the two-hour M*A*S*H retrospective: just the cast and the producers talking about the show and the changes of format, no dubious celebrities telling us how much they loved the show.

Tuesday I updated all the copyrights on my web page so I could do my monthly web site backup. Except when I went to do the backup, the backup drive was gone. It usually sits next to my computer desk and has been in that location for over a year. But, apparently, it, and the container it was in, at some point tipped over and fell in the wastebasket, and it was sometime previous to when I emptied the baskets for trash last Thursday. Annoyed that I now have to go waste money on a new one.

Kaiser still hasn't reupped James' referral to physiotherapy, so we went to MicroCenter on Wednesday instead; I got the cutest little two terabyte (it's about the size of a deck of cards) backup drive that can be hung up on the side of the tower instead of near the basket. It was a grey, bitterly cold day and it was good to get home after we went to Publix next door.

Thursday we did our monthly trip to Canton: strolling the aisles of Books-a-Million, then lunch at Uncle Maddio's Pizza, and finally a stop at BJ's for maple syrup and fruit cups.

On Friday James had his second iron infusion. I posted a short story on AO3 and cross-posted on Fanfiction.net. We ate supper out so as not to have to dirty dishes. Alas, it seems the Okinawa on Dallas Highway doesn't have beef bulgogi like the one on the East-West Connector. I had Mandarin beef instead, but it wasn't a fair trade.

And Saturday was our Twelfth Night party! We ran to Hair Day quickly to get James' hair cut, then came home to finish tidying up and then it was time for food and conversation. We had a couple of call-outs as the Spiveys and the Butlers both were under the weather, but it was a great time anyway. Clay and Maggi and Bill and Caran were here until midnight talking up a storm.

Sunday was cleanup day, and I went outside and took down the lights as well since there's a massive rainstorm coming on Tuesday.

Watched three good movies this week: Operation Mincemeat (now I can't wait to read the book!), Feast of the Seven Fishes (which kinda reminded me of Mystic Pizza but more low-key; I liked the Italian family dynamics more than the jerky Yuppie mother who was trying to force the rich boyfriend on the blond girlfriend), and Knives Out, which was so really convoluted (and I thought some of the families on Law & Order: Criminal Intent were bad).

Labels: books, computers, electronics, fanfiction, food, friends, movies, New Year, nostalgia, parties, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:08:00 PM

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The week began in an ordinary manner (thank goodness!).

Alas, the shorts we had bought at BJs last week, although they were the correct size for James, did not fit. So today we went up to Books-a-Million (they have canned the J. Muggs café, which is sad, because they had the best frozen hot chocolate) and put the magazines (a lot smaller space) in its place. We figured that since we try to get up here once a month it would be worth getting a membership again, especially since Barnes & Noble has jacked up their membership price so you can get such "goodies" as a crappy book bag each year and discounts in their café, which we almost never use. So we got a discount on today's books as well as a $10 gift card to use in the next 30 days. With the refund for the shorts, we got more maple syrup, some nice round steaks, and a wedge of smoked Gouda cheese.

Friday we went to JoAnn to use some good coupons, and when we stopped at Walmart, I finally kept a resolution: I bought new nightshirts. I have been wearing the same nightshirts since we moved into this house; they were still intact, but very faded and rumpled. So I got one with rainbows on it and one that has sleep words ("dream," "snooze," etc.).

Saturday I had a frustrating but ultimately rewarding afternoon rearranging the electronics under the TV now that the Dish Hopper is gone. The Roku is now on HDMI port 1, our aged (we've only had one; I think this one is about fifteen years old) Blu-Ray player on port 2, the VCR/DVD recorder and the Chromecast on a switch port on HDMI 3, and the cheapo region-free DVD player on 4. Plus I made gravy. We got four servings with pork, and then just some plain sauce to mix with ground beef or turkey for another meal.

Sunday I finally cleared out my "shorts and pajamas" drawer, and that's a relief. Threw a few tank tops away, found out I had a brand-new pair of blue shorts I should have been wearing. So...gain.

Labels: books, clothes, crafts, electronics, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:17:00 PM

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Well, it was an eventful week, and that was in a good way except for one thing.

Tuesday, since we had an early appointment at physiotherapy, we went to Trader Joe's afterward. Since James has been making real oatmeal daily, we are using maple syrup regularly. It's very expensive, especially if you want the robust flavor ($22/quart at Publix), so we have been trying to buy it at one of the clubs (Costco, etc.). Unfortunately the syrup comes in jugs (like old-fashioned moonshine jugs), and the pour tops on them are terrible; they never screw back on properly after you remove the foil tab from the top of the jug so that the spout faces "front" (pour spout is opposite the jug handle), no matter how you screw them on. They always face back toward the handle. So we have been refilling the Trader Joe's maple syrup container, which has a pour top that faces "front" properly. Unfortunately a couple of days ago one of us tossed the Trader Joe's container, so we'd hoped to get another.

Sigh...except Trader Joe's has changed their containers and now use a jug, too. I just gave up and ordered a mason jar type 1-quart pouring container from Amazon. This way we can see how much is left as well.

We'd planned to go up to Canton for pizza and a book fix on Thursday, with a side trip to BJs before the coupons expire; I decided at the last minute that it really wouldn't be good for James at this point to put a big load of sodium in his system, and there are enough books, so we ended up going only to BJs. While I was there I saw a little (11 inch) Chromebook for just a little over $100. I've been looking for something that I can write on for certain situations while we're out (James is at physiotherapy or getting an iron infusion), so I grabbed the last one, only to find out it was out of stock. So I ordered one from BJs.com when I got home.

Glad we watched all the Law & Order iterations that evening, since what happens next week may affect a story I'm working on. (Am I in too deep with this stuff or what?)

Friday I tackled some small clean-up things that had been neglected. I finally finished up scrubbing all the things that had been in the birdcage as well as the cage frame itself. It went very slowly and was emotionally draining. The other thing was dusting/cleaning off the space heater in the master bathroom for the season and covering it in plastic. This came as a figurative shock: the plug for the space heater was fused to the plug for the heavy-duty timer with some brownish-black stuff. Both are now in the electronics recycling bin. It's been fine on that timer for several years, so I can only assume the space heater was to blame. We have to have something in there, because it gets terribly cold in there in the winter.

The last thing I did on Friday was to sign up for Philo. This will replace Dish, and, although we will lose TCM, we will actually gain a lot of channels we lost by going down to the Flex Pack, like Animal Planet, BBC America, Science Channel, Destination America, and Sundance all the time rather than on monthly previews. Best of all it's $25 versus $84.

Saturday the first thing I did was pack up the two blue bags that the mail carrier had left earlier. They do a food drive every year. I pulled a lot of higher-sodium items out of the closet and bookcase downstairs, double-bagged it inside leftover Kroger bags, and hung it on the mailbox post. Seriously, they do the food drive in May and expect you to leave the bags on the ground. Sure, expect the nice people who get the food from the food bank to get stuff with ants in them.

James spent the afternoon in his "Man Cave"; I put on a podcast and posted a short piece on A03/FF.net, then girded my loins and called Dish to cancel. I was very surprised, because I'd heard these horror stories on "The Tech Guy" about people calling Spectrum and Frontier and the cable companies and getting these hard-sell please-stay-with-us people badgering them. The guy offered me three things, including one thing where you "park" your account for five dollars a month! But he was very polite, and never at any time gave me a problem. So, after 27 years we are done with Dish.

In the late afternoon I fished the shutters out of the garage and put them on the sidelights on the front door. It isn't pretty, but I thought it did a good job last year of keeping the electric bill down.

Mother's Day was very lazy. James always buy me a gift on Mother's Day because he says I'm a dog mom (and was a budgie mom), so my gift has been sitting on the back of the sofa for about two weeks. I always get him a Father's Day gift for the same reason. He expressed an interest in a book and movie called First Light, about a flyer during the Battle of Britain, so I found a good used copy of the book online (a new copy was $57!) and it turned out to be delivered today. So we exchanged gifts. (I got Catherine Friend's book Sheepish, a sequel to her Hit by a Farm, about a city girl who trades pavement in for soil.)

Spent a good deal of time rearranging the channels on the Roku box. Since we will now get our "cable channels" through Philo, I have that first on the menu. I also deleted the Dish-only Roku services because I can't sign into them anymore. Plus I looked through the channels to see what interesting things are on which channel. For instance, they did a film of Madeleine L'Engle's book Camilla Dickinson. It's on both TubiTV and on Filmrise. There are also short (about sixty minutes each) films based on about a dozen of the "Dear America" books; those are on Filmrise. Stir of Echoes, a paranormal film with Kathryn Erbe, is available on Tubi. (We keep Tubi around because they carry Jonny Harris' stand up series, Still Standing.) I found the Ion channel (which occasionally shows the early Law & Order: SVU episodes) on several services. And a 1948 film based on the BBC's radio series Paul Temple is on one of the "Cozy Mystery" channels.

I also bought Peacock for the year (cheaper per month), which should cover me through almost all of Law & Order next year.

The sobering thing was finding out a friend was in the hospital again, this time with tachycardia. She won't have any news until Monday.

Labels: electronics, errands, events, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:23:00 PM

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I am fit to be tied.

Thankfully, this has nothing to do with James' health. James had a very good day on Friday at physiotherapy, and we also saw the respiratory specialist that day. We can knock off carrying the oxygen bottles around and he no longer needs the supplemental oxygen during the day! She gave him a walking test and his pulse ox stayed at 93 while he was walking and went up to 96 when he sat down. (We had been practicing him coming up and down the stairs without the cannula for a few days now and got the same results!) We still have to keep the "fishtank," though, because she wants him to stay on oxygen at night. We can cope with that. No tripping over that damn hose anymore! He's fallen three times due to it, including into the printer, breaking the printer cable.

No, it's dealing with Christmas tree lights again. Monday I'd put up the easiest tree, the metal one that showcases all our 12 Days of Christmas Hallmark ornaments. So easy. We just bought the 12th day ornament this year, so it's complete. Tuesday I got the big tree upstairs, but by the time I fluffed it and replaced at least a dozen bulbs, I was too tired to decorate it. That I did on Wednesday, and by the time I was done I was knackered. I usually watch Christmas specials while putting up the tree, but just left NBC on and let the "Chicago" shows play out. Dear God, is this what Dick Wolf is reduced to now? Chicago Med is so overblown and stagy and soapy I kept expecting Matt and Maggie Powers, Nick Bellini, and Steve Aldrich and Carolee Simpson from NBC's classic daytime drama The Doctors to come strolling in. Poor S. Epatha Merkerson, stuck in this awful thing when Anita Van Buren was such a great character on Law & Order!

Unfortunately, all the lights on the library tree are shot, completely burned out, every single one of them. I considered removing them and just putting on another string, but the lights are fastened on there tight and it would be a lot of work to get them off. The rest of the week I looked for another four-foot real-looking tree, and the ones I saw were as ugly as sin. Even Michael's, where I got this tree, didn't have anything good, just one with mixed branches that looked horrible. So by the time my birthday arrived on Saturday, the library was still undecorated. However, I had brought a string of fifteen battery-powered seed lights. I took the table the tree usually goes on, put the tablecloth and "snowy material" on top, then set the six little village houses that I usually put under the tree around the big pine cone Christmas tree I bought for a dollar at a craft show. Then I wound the seed lights around the houses and put an extra color-changing candle at the back. It didn't look all that bad, in fact kind of sweet.

But not being about to put up the library tree is still disheartening.

Plus my Fitbit was having fits this week: one night the display dimmed and dimmed and dimmed, and finally pretty much almost disappeared. Even though it said the charge was at 85 percent, I figured maybe it never charged properly, so I plugged it in. Still dim. So I chatted with the Fitbit people and they said they would send me a return label. Still I plugged in the Fitbit that night, since it was still relaying information to my phone, and wore it to bed.

When I got up in the morning the display was fine again. [eyeroll] Electronics. Can't live with 'em.

Also sad news on the fandom front: Chris Boucher died. Among the things he wrote, my very first and still favorite episode of Blake's 7, "City at the Edge of the World."

Labels: Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, electronics, health, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:23:00 PM

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A new "thing" has been added to our medical routine.

When we went to Dr. Jefferson on Monday, he removed James' foley catheter and we thought he was going to do a cytoscopy (urethral scan) as well as a void test. However, Dr. Jefferson has decided all this trouble is caused by nerve damage stemming from 20 years of diabetes; since it is uncomfortable for James and also a UTI vector, a long-time foley was not acceptable. He has been put on intermittent catherization, which means he has to manually empty his bladder three to four times a day. Unfortunately due to his back problems and mobility issues, he can't actually do it himself. Guess what! Yes, a new skill in my "nursing career." I got a chance to do it once, and then we got sent home with red rubber caths and lubrication. What fun.

(I told Dr. Jefferson: "Oh, like Airplane Guy." "Airplane Guy" is what we call the dude who advertises urinary catheters on whatever side channel it is, how he's happy he can now fly his airplane again with his cath.)

The rest of the week was a little more cheerful, especially as September 1 rolled around so that it's meteorological autumn finally!

On Thursday we did our monthly drive to Canton to eat at Uncle Maddio's (yes, one guy still running the entire show!) and Books-a-Million. To my surprise, I came out with no books, but I did find one for Emma. Then on the way back we stopped at BJs and stocked up on fruit cups and other items to get us through mostly payless October. This week we also hit Nam Dae Mun for the first time in months since Publix didn't have any slivered almonds for my oatmeal.

Saturday we bounced: Sam's Club to Costco to Best Buy in search of a television. Since James is retiring, I'm hoping he won't be spending all his time locked in front of his computer screen anymore. So I told him that as a birthday/retirement gift I would get him a new TV for downstairs. Combined with the Amazon Fire Stick we got as a Christmas gift, it would make good entertainment while he's modeling. Well, turned out neither Sam's nor Costco carries under 40 inch TVs anymore! (Funny, they were there a few months ago.) So we went to Best Buy, but the TV we picked out was cheaper at Target! So off we went up Cobb Parkway and got the TV, which I spent all afternoon setting up. It's a Roku TV, so not only did I tune in all the local channels, but all the Roku channels he'd be interested in. Or rather I had to tune out the ones he wouldn't be interested in, which took a while, since the darn thing loaded about 300 channels. (I'd be willing to bet James will be watching the Caught in Providence channel, since he watches Judge Caprio every chance he gets.) I also had to log in on all the other services we get, like Netflix, Acorn, etc. before I could carry it downstairs and actually plug it in. (It's better to tune it in upstairs, where the Leaf antenna gets the most channels. But this television seems to be stronger at picking up signals and he's getting most of the locals downstairs, except for GPB which we can't get upstairs anyway and what I call "the God Squad," all the local religious channels.)

But...that's done.

Labels: books, electronics, food, health, illness, seasons, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:25:00 PM

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This was pretty much a work week: two straight days (Sunday and Monday) of regular housework and then chores that are done irregularly (plus loading the endless maw of the dishwasher). On Monday Peachtree came by to look at the thermostat. The reason the Smart Hub keeps dropping out is something about it being a low voltage line in competition with surrounding high voltage. Yeah, but we never had these problems with the old thermostat, so can't you fix it? He fiddled around and did a few things. It still drops out occasionally, but I guess it's not so frequent as before.

Tuesday was the Great Dog Wash and Great Dog Bedding Wash, which pretty much knocks me out for the rest of the day, leaving me to indulge my Law & Order: Criminal Intent habit...

James had to take a half-day on Wednesday because he can't see his cardiologist at the end of the week. Dr. Shosh said he looked okay and that it was fine for him to be off Plavix for five days before having any teeth pulled. Alas, after having a toothache for several weeks, the dentist tells him he has to go to an oral surgeon because his roots have grown sideways or some damnfool thing. In the old days you went to the dentist, and if you had a toothache they just pulled it, no muss, no fuss. Sheesh. So we found out we couldn't get an appointment with the oral surgeon until August 11, and then that was just for them to look at his teeth, so he has to go another month on salt rinses and Ambesol. We've already spent about $30 on Ambesol already and it's not helping a lot of times.

Friday was a little bit fun: we had to pick up a scrip at Kaiser and then went to Sonny's for barbecue (nice big portions, so we have another dinner). Hit the nearby Dollar Tree and they must be very shorthanded because it looked like a bomb went off in the store: merchandise on the floor everywhere. So avoid the Dollar Tree near Sam's Club at the Big Chicken. We also went to Book Nook, and I want to applaud the employees for even staying there, because the A/C is on the fritz and it's like an oven inside. I did find another John Douglas book and one about forensics.

Anyway, July 12 was Prime Day. This year I bought nothing but a three-tier cart, rather than anything electronic. I'd never seen a cart like this, with little hanging cups and dividers for the trays and hooks. On Saturday I loaded up the cart—not with fun craft things, but with all of James' medical supplies: the gauze, the Coban, the Betadyne, the stretch bandages, etc. out of the box on the floor and up higher, with extra supplies down below. Now I can just roll it out when I need it and put it back in the closet when I don't.

Did a bunch of other rearranging on Saturday, too, and felt like I accomplished something.

Labels: books, chores, dogs, electronics, health, illness, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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It's been...a week.

Some positive things did happen. The most important is that we have found our old mechanic! James' truck needs work on the A/C; it either needs a shot of freon or the fan needs fixing. We didn't want to call True Automotive (what our old place turned into) since I'm pretty sure they overcharged me last time. We did get a coupon from an Advantage Auto Center on Cobb Parkway to have a free check of a car's A/C, so James called them up and heard a familiar name on the voice mail: it was Mike! So we have arranged to have the truck seen on Monday the 20th. I also made an appointment with the local KIA dealership to get Butch checked out; he has at least three recalls on him, including one to "update the software." So, my car needs Windows updates? I am wondering if this is what made the car lose power while I was driving it on May tenth. If not, I'm not sure if I want KIA to look at the car or just take it to Mike.

And James went to the urologist on Thursday and the NP pulled out the catheter. Hopefully the infection has gone away. I am less sanguine about the state of his prostate. I think it might be blocking his urethra again. This would mean more surgery. I hope this isn't the case.

On Saturday he had an MRI of his back. Orthopedics is trying to determine if there are some type of shots he can take as well as physiotherapy to help him walk a little better, so he (a) won't be in such pain and (b) will be able to exercise more. We were almost late because we were two-thirds of the way there and ran into a roadblock because a car had driven off Paper Mill Road. We were forced to backtrack and take another route and got stuck behind a moving van doing 25mph. How frustrating! But we did get there on time and it only took about thirty minutes, and James said the techs were very nice.

Our big problem started on Tuesday. Now, we got new HVAC in 2016, the day James had his first heart attack. We also got the maintenance plan; they do a checkup twice a year for a monthly fee. Well, less than two years ago they turn up with this new wifi programmable thermostat, as opposed to the old non-wifi programmable thermostat. I think the model number is a Lennox E30. Anyway, I did create an online account and it's nifty—like if we forget to turn on the eco-programming if we go away for a weekend, I can turn it on with the phone and not waste energy.

Well, the E30 is a finicky beast. The original they installed messed up less than a year into our owning it. It just quit working. This was when it was cold—maybe six months ago? They put in a new one. This one's been a little flaky—for instance, I have it in power save mode, which means the screen is supposed to stay off unless I wave my hand in front of it, but it turns off and on indiscriminately—but it's always held to the various programmed schedules fine. Until today. I walked past it and it came on...and what the hell? Instead of being on "summer" schedule, with temp set at 74, it was on "heat only" and already 77 in the house. Went to turn it back to summer schedule. Guess what. Touch screen has completely quit working.

Labels: cars, electronics, events, health, traffic

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:52:00 PM

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The news from Texas. Oh, God, the news from Texas. This gunman didn't even have a screed. And the police remained outside the school for an hour because they didn't have orders to go in, while a whole fourth grade classroom was under fire. Almost all the kids died. One played dead. Two teachers died. The gunman got in through an unlocked door. The lunatics are coming out of the woodwork.

"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."

So emotionally it's been kind of a week. Feeling bad on Monday. Thursday the usual grocery crap, plus we had to go to Costco to get some medication for James. Finally got decent Skinny Pop; threw the buttered junk away. What a waste of six dollars.

In positive news, James finally had his appointment with the pain clinic. Although the problem for him is his hips, the doctor did some examination of him and says it's really his back; the pain just feels like it's in his hips. He'll have an MRI of his spine in June and then she believes some injections and maybe hydrotherapy will help the pain.

The big news here this week was that we got new phones. If you remember, I dropped mine and cracked the screen some months back. Leo LaPorte mentioned several times that most phone batteries only last two years, and we got the old phones July during the pandemic. So on Friday we had lunch at Chow King with Ken and Alice, then walked back to Best Buy and bought phones. We were looking at the new Moto G Stylus phones, but last year's model (from November 2021) was on sale for $200 each, so we got those instead. Spent all day Saturday setting up my phone. You can back them up all you want, but there are just things you have to reload (all my podcast programs!) and then have to go hunting up passwords that the phone didn't save, and reload ringtones, notification sounds, alarm sounds, etc. It's like juggling kittens with their claws out. I do like the stylus. I did get my old podcast app to work (since I was never satisfied last time with any of the newer ones) via the .apk file for the app I managed to extract. Sadly, my favorite "Jewels" type game, the Christmas one, no longer displays properly. I tried loading it manually, but no dice. A few of the other apps no longer on the Google Play market, like Blendoku and Note Everything, also did load for me, but I really don't need the latter now that I have Google Docs to put our emergency medical info on.

Ribs were BOGO at Publix for Memorial Day, and I was going to cook them on Monday, but James decided to do them himself on Saturday. This time cooked them in the lower oven for three hours, and they were utterly delectable. Had them with corn on the cob. I got St. Louis style ribs, and we both got full and had enough ribs left over to have them for Memorial Day, too, after all.

Just finished a fifth post-series Law & Order: Criminal Intent story. Been reading fanfic online and wondering if I should do something a little...um...different for the next one, since ideas just keep popping up.

Labels: electronics, food, health, news, shopping, sickness, writing

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:46:00 PM

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I have failed to mention my ongoing Fitbit saga.

Late last March James bought a new Fitbit, a Versa2, one with a "real" watch face rather than the digital Alta, at Sam's Club. This came with an extra band, a bit of lagniappe that you usually get at warehouse clubs. I was immediately envious, but I wanted the "rose gold" one (read: light copper) and Sam's didn't have any that day. So I ordered one online from Sam's instead in April, and I have been very pleased with it since.

On March 22, my Fitbit worked fine all day, down to when I took the dog for a walk at 9:45 p.m. But when I went to plug it on the charger an hour later, it had no display, nor did the "battery at ___%" notation that comes up when you plug it in. So I left it plugged in while I did evening ablutions, and then when I put it back on, still no display, although the Fitbit synced with the app on my phone and was indeed recording my heart rate. I wore it to bed, and it documented my sleep, still was recording my heart rate, even my steps when I walked the dog. So basically it was still working, it just had no display, which meant I couldn't see the time, or use the timer, or use Tap-to-Pay, and, seriously, what's the use of that? So I got on Fitbit Chat online and Fitbit almost immediately sent me a return label because the unit was still within the one-year warranty period. I wrapped up the Fitbit, the charger, and the band it came with as they instructed in bubble wrap, put it in a padded envelope, slapped the return label on it, and providentially as I was thinking of taking it to the post office the mail carrier was just coming by, and I handed it to him and watched him log it in.

And that was the last time I saw it. Here it is April 20 and I still have no word about it. I e-mail Fitbit once a week about it; the last time they actually gave me a positive message was on March 30, when they said it still hadn't reached their warehouse, but the tracking number said it was supposed to be delivered the 31st. However, when I e-mailed on April 6, they said it still hadn't reached the warehouse! WTF, people???

So here it is April 20, exactly four weeks after I mailed it, and I still don't have any word of it.

I did kind of luck out on Saturday when I was sweeping the garage. When I first mailed the Versa2 off, I thought, I still have my old Alta, I can use that. Then I remembered that I had decided to recycle it. But when did I decide to recycle it? Was it before or after Electronics Recycling Day in November? So I went down to the garage, turned on the overhead lights, and looked into the recycling boxes, but didn't see anything. So I figured it was before ERD and I was stuck. Well, last Saturday when I was sweeping out the garage and, of course, had the doors open, I had a lot more light in there, and, lo and behold, there was the old Alta in the biggest recycling box! But would it still charge up after not being charged for a year? So while I was watching The Whole Wide World I was charging it on the Turbo-Charge plug (3.0 USB) from James' phone—he was at his meeting—and it charged up fine and works perfectly, so now I can at least know what time it is, get silent alarms, and record my steps and active minutes.

But where, O where, has my Versa2 gone? O where, O where can it be?

Labels: customer service, electronics

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:38:00 PM

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It's spring, dammit. Yellow pine pollen everywhere. Did housework all day Sunday and then had the rest of the work week to do some editing and, as always, unloading and loading the dishwasher and doing the laundry. But...James is not in the hospital. Happiness is relative.

Thursday was our usual shopping day. It was sunny and warm after the storm we had during the "wee smalls," but unfortunately it didn't get all the pine pollen out of the air. It makes you feel like spitting the "dirt" from out of your mouth. We found chicken drumsticks on sale and ground beef at 30 percent off at Lidl, had very few BOGO items at Publix, and then had to go to Kroger anyway (even though I had bought milk at Lidl not to have to do that, since I knew they would no longer have my yogurt) because Publix didn't have any lightly-salted Pringles. Annoying. I was able to get James more Tina burritos anyway.

We came home, put everything away, ate a sandwich, and then went to Town Center where they have a better class of Walmart. Needed a certain toiletry, pants hangers since I found two new pairs of pants at BJs, sugarless candy and canned corn beef for James, a few other items, and yes, they did have my brand and flavor of yogurt, but this means if I want it, I have to go to Walmart. And they only had fourteen, so I'll have to go in two weeks. Barf.

James wanted to go to Hobbytown, but they were redoing the aisles and he couldn't get to the models. So instead we had ice cream for dessert.

Hey, we're adults, we can eat dessert before dinner!

In the evening we watched CSI, and then Young Sheldon, United States of Al, and Masterchef Junior, which had all recorded while CSI was on. Anything not to have to watch those meshuggenah network commercials (there are commercials on Hulu, but nowhere near as many).

On Friday James had an appointment at Emory St. Joseph's doctors' center at the neurology department as a followup for his fall. We saw a very nice nurse-practitioner who (1) liked our mask "leashes" and (2) was impressed that James makes his own burritos to keep his sodium down. We talked a lot, and basically she said James should have more physio therapy and also consider spinal injections to keep the pain down in his spine. (No one has ever suggested this before, even his rheumatologist.)

For lunch we went to a place called The Lazy Dog, which Alice and Ken recommended. We had a chicken and rice and veg dish that was very nice (I had teriyaki and James had sweet and spicy), and for dessert had "triple chocolate mousse" that was to die for (not as good as the Black Tie Mousse cake at Olive Garden, but you can't have everything). When we finished we went to Barnes & Noble. Didn't find much, and my card has expired anyway.

On the way home we stopped at Best Buy to look at phones since I cracked the screen on mine about a month ago. It still works fine, but the phone is getting to the point where it's discharging quicker. Leo LaPorte says the batteries start to fail on phones after two years and this one is almost two. (Liked it better when you could swap out batteries, thank you.) We were looking at the Moto G Stylus. Wondering if the green one with the better camera is worth the extra $50.

During the evening we watched the newest episode of Picard season 2 (with a reference to Gary Seven on the original series!), and then some CSI. I think we just hit the episode where the "GSR" ("Grissom-Sara Romance") kicked in.

On Saturday we stayed in to do chores, including scheduling our COVID booster shots for next Friday. For supper we ate at O'Charley's at a birthday dinner for Ken Spivey, and that was nice.

Labels: electronics, food, friends, health, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:34:00 PM

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If James was going to have a week's furlough, at least we could get a "sort of" vacation out of it. So I turned off all the alarms and we looked forward to a nice Monday morning of sleeping in.

Labels: anniversary, autumn, chores, dogs, electronics, food, health, shopping, television, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:14:00 PM

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Labels: books, dogs, electronics, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:38:00 PM

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If it wasn’t for bad luck, we might not have any at all.

Oh, some good stuff happened this week. I finally had the staples removed from my head–hurrah, I can brush my hair properly again!–and then the next day I went out in the yard and finally did the tidying I wanted to get done when it was cold: I used the Wolfgarten "lopper" connected with the extension pole and took down a bunch of tree branches before they leafed out, plus cleaned around Pidgie’s and Schuyler’s graves and tossed out some broken resin lawn ornaments.

And now it’s really spring: we’ve had the grass cut for the first time this year.

The nicest part of the week was going to Barnes & Noble.

The lousy surprise was going to Dr. Friedman on Friday and discovering James had a new blister on his foot–it wasn’t there last night! He’s at the point where his leg is almost well, but there’s always this one tiny little thing that keeps it from being back to where it was in December. Thankfully, the doctor didn't decided to put him back in the calamine unna boot.

The even worse surprise was James intending to call his mom for her birthday later on, and discovering she was in the hospital. She had bradycardia from high calcium; something is wrong with her parathyroid. I know that one; I remember the awful calcium drip I had to have when I had my thyroid out (since it messes with your parathyroid, which controls your calcium), and also the liquid supplement that the night nurse brought, and even after I left the hospital I had to have a special prep of it mixed up at Wender and Roberts, which was a real apothecary and not just a drugstore. It sounded as if she might need to have the parathyroid removed, but maybe there's some sort of medical therapy for it.

James also had to return the new (refurbed) laptop he’d bought because the wifi quit working. It was a crazy week for technology period, since one of my most-used phone apps stopped working completely and I had to reload it twice before it “took” again. Both phones seemed to have trouble connecting to the wifi for a couple of days; we even considered rebooting the router. But then it straightened up out of nowhere, so maybe it was the phones.

Anyway, I noticed when I brushed my teeth Friday night that my gums were very sore and bleeding. They’d been fine previously and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I immediately started myself on salt and water rinses, and even that hurt! By Saturday morning I could barely brush my teeth and I didn’t feel very well. As a precaution, I took my temperature before we went to Hair Day and it was 97.9℉, so I didn’t know what the problem was. Now, we were supposed to leave Hair Day at one to get to my appointment at the Kaiser Gwinnett office for my second vaccine. Instead about noon I asked James if we could go home so I could lie down for a half hour before we left for Gwinnett. The first thing I did upon getting inside was take my temperature again and it was 100.5! I took some ibuprofin and then kept taking my temp every ten minutes and it never got lower than 99.9. So I had to call Kaiser up and cancel the appointment again. [Later: I got an e-mail on Sunday and was able to reschedule it for April 3. What a pain in the neck!]

[Sunday my gums were still sore but…of course, no fever.]

Labels: books, chores, electronics, health, illness, outdoors

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:22:00 PM

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Well, medically it's been a strange week.

Labels: books, electronics, food, friends, health, shopping, sickness, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:06:00 PM

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(or Region B, whatever the hell they're calling it these days.)

It all started with VCRs and the movie studios. You remember videotape, right? Initially VCRs were marketed as being used for "time-shifting." You wouldn't be home to watch Charlie's Angels or Laverne & Shirley? Back then it was over the air, no DVRs. If you missed an episode, it might be rerun in the summer. It might not. But VCRs solved the problem: program the unit, and when you got home, or the next day, you could rewind your tape and watch Bosley and the ladies or 1950s days at the Shotz Brewery. Then came places like Blockbuster Video. Were you a Get Smart fan who missed The Nude Bomb when it was aired in a mere 40 movie houses back in 1980? You could rent the VHS tape and realize that you really hadn't missed anything at all. (Trust me.)

But some people thought, "Wow, wouldn't this be a great thing to have so we could buy and watch our favorite movie over and over?" And they did finally start selling movies, at $80 a pop at first. But the movie studios were apoplectic. What if...what if, mind you?...people bought a movie and another VCR (yeah, a second one at $750 each back then—sure; let me tell you about this bridge in Brooklyn that's for sale..) and then started making copies of it to give to their friends! The movie studios would lose sales. And what if these same people started selling these copies?

Well, you could arrest them, of course. But that wasn't enough. So something called copyguarding was put on professional videotapes. If you did indeed try to copy one, the picture faded in and out and rolled. When DVDs got popular in the late 90s, copy encoding was put on them as well.

Alas, this didn't satisfy the MPAA. Once DVDs came along, movie studios had another concern: their overseas profits. Usually when a movie hits a cinema in the United States, it's another year before it's shipped overseas. So Galaxy Quest, for instance, which was released December of 1999, wouldn't reach cinema audiences in France, Great Britain, Australia, etc. until November or December 2000. But people in those countries who heard about this funny film...gasp!...might just buy the American DVD when it came out in May of 2000 and not go to see it at the cinema. The movie studio would lose their revenues from foreign countries. Quelle horreur! So Region Codes were devised. The US and Canada were Region 1, Great Britain was Region 2, Australia was Region 4, etc. (I just learned recently it's now Region A, Region B, etc. I'm still numerical. Sue me.)

This is just fine if everything that's released in Region 1 is also released in Region 2, etc. and vice versa. The problem is, that's not the case.

I've been an Anglophile since I read Lassie Come-Home in fourth grade and watched The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene in glorious black and white on TV. I love most of British television. I especially adore all their documentaries on mainstream television, the stuff that used to be on American television (remember the National Geographic Specials???) but are now usually relegated to PBS, Smithsonian, and other cable channels. And I have gobbled up any programming that was available: Britcoms on PBS, Masterpiece Mystery, Flambards (also on PBS), the British kids' book adaptations that showed up on Once Upon a Classic and Family Classics, British mystery and adventure series that used to turn up in the summer in the 1960s and 1970s (like Strange Report), the series that popped up after the FCC forced network television to give up a half hour of programming every night like Doctor in the House and Dave Allen At Large, shows that were brought to me by science fiction fandom (Doctor Who on PBS and grainy camera copies of Blake's 7 seen at conventions). And lots of them were eventually released on American DVDs: Doctor Who, The Good Life (a.k.a. Good Neighbors), All Creatures Great and Small, Pie in the Sky...

Alas, a lot of them weren't. This includes the aforementioned Blake's 7, The Goodies, Doctor in the House, Dave Allen of any persuasion, and, the unkindest cut of all, one of my favorite series of all time, Alistair Cooke's brilliant America which aired on NBC in 1972 and after that was only available to libraries until it was released on DVD—only in Region 2, of course—about a decade ago.

Now let's time-travel back to halcyon days...cue the flashback music, here come the calendar pages flipping backwards...those days around the years 2002-2004 when marvelous Media Play was still open and we used to play trivia on Saturday nights at Rockford's Bar & Grill (goodness, I still miss their Asian salad!). I think it might have been Jake and Nancy who came wandering in one evening saying they had found an inexpensive DVD player that could be region-hacked by entering a certain combination of numbers into the unit while it had no disc in it. Plus, at a time when DVD players were almost $100, this unit, a Cyberhome, was only $40.

We eventually ended up with three of them, all region-hacked, and they worked really well, until they started, one by one, to give up the ghost (we still have one somewhere; not sure if it still works).

Now we have to take a slight digression (I'll try to miss the left turn at Albuquerque). Ten, twelve years ago we were watching This Old House on PBS regularly as well as a series I really loved, History Detectives. (You can still find History Detectives episodes on PBS Passport.—highly recommended!) Unfortunately both Georgia Public Broadcasting (Georgia's PBS station) and WPBA (Atlanta's PBS station, two different entities) pretty much run fundraising every two months, weeks and weeks of This Old House and all the regular programming pre-empted for Joel Osteen preaching, Suzi Ormand talking money, some doctor advising you on your diet, old rock and roll specials, endless repetitions of the Presidents episodes of American Experience, etc. When the regular programming did return, we had missed two or three episodes. Now we can just go on PBS Passport and pull 'em up; back then you had to go to PBS' web page and watch it, of course, only on your computer.

So what I used to do was attach my laptop to the television with a serial cable, change the Windows settings so it had two screens instead of one, move the browser screen from screen one (the computer) to the television (screen two), and then play History Detectives full screen on the television. Yeah, it was going around Robin Hood's barn for the result, but it worked.

Around 2010, around the time the Cyberhomes started to go belly-up, we found this small, Windows 7-based computer at Microcenter, a Lenovo IdeaCentre. That's all it was, a computer: 6"x7 1/2"x1.25", but it did come with a DVD player. So after that we could watch History Detectives on this little computer via a Firefox browser, and since the DVD player on a computer is region-free, we could use that to play the Region 2 DVDs. And every so often I'd wander on to Amazon and check the prices on Region Free players.

Amazon Vine came to the rescue two weeks ago: they had a free-for-an-honest review Region Free DVD player on one of their lists! The listing was confusing; it said it only came with RCA cables (composite video) but the pictures showed it coming with HDMI, and so did the visual literature. So it arrived last week and sure enough, it was only coaxial or composite video (white, yellow, and red plugs), and when I hitched it up, it was not Region Free. (For a $20 DVD player, otherwise it was fine: played older fullscreen DVDs (Flambards) and newer widescreen video (Airport) well, the sound through the sound bar was good.) So I posted just that, that it was a good inexpensive player, but was not as advertised. I also found the manufacturer's e-mail on the manual and contacted them. They apologized, fixed the Amazon page, and sent me the hack for Region Free; like the Cyberhome, it was a matter of entering a certain code on the machine while it was empty.

So basically I'm back to Cyberhome territory again, except the Cyberhome video was a little better (component video, the red-blue-and-green plugs). There is an HDMI version of the unit that also has component video. To be perfectly honest, since only one of my Region 2 DVDs is HD, I'm not broken up about it not being HDMI. When we replaced (under extreme duress; the on-off switch on the previous set died) our television in 2014, we paid extra for a model with four HDMI ports. Every single one is in use and we have a splitter on one of them. So having this go from HDMI to composite is a ::shrug:: moment. I'm not one of these videophiles that has to have videos in pristine condition. To me the story on the DVD is the thing: I watched fourth generation, mostly blue camera copies of Blake's 7 for years, not to mention snowy episodes of Ask the Manager before my dad bought a signal booster and an antenna rotor for our outdoor antenna. The pictures were terrible, but I still got to visit with Vila and Avon, or Joe and Dana. That was the important thing. If using composite video means I can't see the pores in Dave Allen's skin while he's telling a falling-down funny joke, well...so be it. HDMI would be nice; maybe some day...

And that's, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.

Labels: DVDs, electronics, movies, television, videos

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:15:00 PM

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 1. James didn't have to go to the hospital all year!
 2. After a false start, James' arthritis medicine worked.
 3. Dark chocolate Oreos.
 4. Lidl.
 5. Finally resolved loveseat problem and moved my desk into craft room (loveseat is now a storage platform!), leaving room for toy chest in bedroom which is now blanket chest.
 6. Bought all Lassie black-and-white episodes (uncut).
 7. Finally found the baby monitor so I can use it when doing laundry.
 8. Finally rid of that stupid Pixel phone.
 9. Subscribed to PBS Passport.
10. Saw David Tennant at DragonCon.
11. Molly of Denali.
12. Pam-next-door's Christmas tree.*


*I suppose I should explain. Pam moved next door in October. She's renting the downstairs of the house, and I guess she has kitchen privileges upstairs. She has a little Shih Tzu named Diesel who is having a territorial dispute with Tucker, who imagines he owns the neighborhood. Anyway, she had a Christmas tree downstairs in her "parlor," but right before Christmas she put a real one up upstairs in the dining room window. Since she doesn't spend most of the time upstairs, most of the time there was just a little light in the kitchen and the tree glowing in the window. Well, I spent so much time staring at that tree every time I walked Tucker at night that Pam must have thought I was nuts. But instead I was flashing back to childhood and going to my Papà's house for Christmas. I've written about this several places, including in an essay called "The Magic House." From that essay:

...to slowly make my way up the cellar steps to the back entry, and thus to the kitchen.

As always it was dark, except for a nightlight, in a room that looked as if it hadn't changed since the 1940s. The newest appliance was the big white-and-chrome Roper stove with its two ovens, seated like a squat monarch overlooking a tiny kingdom. The table, looking like a dwarf compared with its big cousin downstairs, was covered with a red-checked cloth, and with the white-fronted kitchen cabinets and the homey little memorabilia on the walls and side tables, it looked like something out of a dream. Aunty never forgot the upstairs tables; cut glass dishes held ribbon candy and chocolates even here, and I'd be able to sneak a few more bites away from Mom's disapproving eye. But food was not the lure, but the light...

There was a soft glow from the dining room coming through the glass-paned door; to open it led you in a room from another century, furnished with the heavy sideboards and dining room set, and lit, like some enchanted glade, simply by the light of the Christmas tree. This had electric lights, of course, not the more dangerous candles, but these were always the original, large bulb sets, supplemented for many years by a dwindling few of the fascinating bubble lights. In those bulbs the ornaments flashed and glittered and twinkled: old molded glass fruits side-by-side with the Woolworth's balls both old--including clear ones from World War II--and new, the branches hung with the heavy old-fashioned icicles in lieu of the newer mylar ones. They danced in the little bursts of air that crept nevertheless under the cold windows and collided with the warmer air from the cast-iron radiators.

If I were truly alone, if one of the uncles had not crept upstairs to watch the big cabinet black-and-white TV and fall asleep--"I'm just resting my eyes!"--on the capacious sofa, I could curl up on the floor under the tree where brightly wrapped gifts and the manger set sat, to smooth the cotton footing under the various statues, to move sheep into their proper places, and wonder what it had truly been like in Bethlehem on that night. If you laid back on the cold floor just right and looked up, there was a faerie path between the tree branches lit by color and glitter--if you could only walk forward, you too could be a part of the Magic. There was the quiet to think, to dream, but still comforted by the sounds of the party below and the faint murmur of Christmas stories playing on the television.

Of course Pam's tree's didn't have big bulbs or vintage ornaments and lead tinsel, but lit up there, glowing multi-color against the dim dining room, seen with a stage curtain frame of drapery pulled up in a scallop on either side, glimpsed through open shutters of Venetian blinds, well, somehow, if just for a moment, that magic door opened up again and comforted me and set up longing all at once.

I miss Pam's tree.

Labels: Christmas, decluttering, DragonCon, electronics, health, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:25:00 PM

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We had a broken-up weekend this week. James' dermatologist isn't in the office on Thursdays or Fridays, so he had to go for his quarterly inspection (since the two basal-cell skin cancer procedures he had in the spring) on Wednesday. So he was off Wednesday and worked Thursday.

His appointment wasn't until afternoon, so I did half the laundry in the morning and also cleaned up some in the dining room; we had two food gifts from Christmas in baskets that were still sitting on top of Tucker's box, so I put the items in the pantry closet and will recycle the baskets. We saw the doctor (all clear, but she is glad James is going to the wound clinic next week), then came home by Publix to do the majority of the shopping. We were cheered by the chatty bagger who helped us out with our groceries and returned the electric cart for us, and recommended Patak's to her for meat. (We were having sausage for dinner, so will need to go back there at some point. Besides, I want more mortadella.)

So James went off to work on Thursday and I was fairly busy with going to Hobby Lobby for a sewing item I needed (also found a cute toy for Toys for Tots) and then picking up some groceries at Lidl. I had filled up one trash bag for Friday morning pickup and had collected the rest of the house trash; was spoiling to find something else to get rid of. I found it on top of the refrigerator after preparing some snack bags of nuts for James when he goes to work (we keep the food scale up there). I discovered a bunch of bottles we don't use anymore there, on their sides, and tossed them all out. All I kept was the one carton holder because they don't make those things anymore (we actually have four now, up in that useless cupboard that's over the fridge; I can only get them out using the "grabby thing"). We rarely buy anything liquid in a carton, but should we want orange juice or eggnog we have them up there. Now all that's up there is a filtered pitcher, the scale, a gravy separator, the big spool of string, and, on a lazy Susan, the unopened jars of finishing sauces. I put the wooden pumpkin that used to be on my desk at work in the fall up there as a decoration.

The trash bag still wasn't full, so I went into the garage and tossed out empty containers, old items we aren't going to use anymore, bags, etc. until it was stuffed to the gills. I was lucky and found some empty cassette cases. I have Christmas cassettes with broken cases, so this will help!

Friday we were back to the usual schedule; this weekend we had to go to Costco, as James needed mandarin orange cups for his morning drink and "plastic cheese" (the Kraft kind) for sandwiches; we also got toilet paper. Discovered Costco is just as crowded on Friday at eleven as it is on Saturday morning! We got back just in time to head out to West Cobb Diner for lunch with Alice and Ken. Following that, we visited the Barnes & Noble at Dallas Highway (a book I wanted was on sale, so James bought it for me for my birthday; I found two more nice things from the clearance table for Toys for Tots, too), and then stopped at Kroger for the BOGO pork chops and sale sugar-free cookies. On the way home we had a real treat: ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. Hadn't had one of those for months!

Normally we would have been in bed early last night to get up at 6:30 so we could make it to Ellijay and the Georgia Apple Festival by nine when they opened. Instead some stinky tropical storm formed in the Gulf of Mexico a few days back, spreading a band of rain so far that even 324 miles from the Pensacola landfall we were still going to get rain and so was Ellijay. Never mind that James isn't supposed to take the power chair out in the rain, the close parking for the Apple Festival is in a big grassy field that turns into a big grassy swamp when it's wet. We have been there in previous years where it rained the day before and vehicles still got stuck in the mud. But rain and the chair made this insurmountable: even if James covered up the controller with a plastic bag we still remember the last time we went there the day after it rained; we had to keep getting help from strong people because his power chair got bogged down four or five times in soft grass and mud. (So even if we were able to go tomorrow getting around would be problematic.) We haven't missed an apple festival in years, only once because we were on vacation, and we were hoping Smack Yo Mama barbecue and Meadowcroft Farms would be there, because we missed them at Yellow Daisy. (Just looked at the vendor list; we apparently did miss the former, but the latter isn't on the list. Maybe Smack Yo Mama will be at the Jonquil Festival next weekend.) And I was so looking forward to the apples we would buy afterward—we always crunch on a nice big sour one on the way home! (Of course James says we can just go up there some day next week or the week after and stop at Panorama Orchards as always for fresh apples and jam and pot pie noodles.)

So it looked like it was going to be a gray, bleak, and boring day, except Dish (of all people) offered us a diversion. A few days ago we got an e-mail saying they were sending us one of their newfangled voice remotes free. We got it on Friday and I set it up and of course started to play with it, just naming series for the Google Assistant to find. One of the best things I found was that the last six episodes of this season of Elementary, the last few episodes of the very final season, the ones that I missed because of Dish's stupid dust-up with CBS, were just about to air on WGN, so I was able to set them up to record. I also found out that one of our favorite series, Flying Wild Alaska, was still available on Discovery on Demand (except for one episode; don't know why), so we've been watching it all afternoon.

This, of course, as always with us and electronics, was not without its hiccups. We successfully found and started episode 1. Ten minutes in, the video faltered, dropped out, and the Dish Hopper said it no longer had internet access. Well, it didn't—the router had gone off. When it came back up, it had so little signal that it wouldn't reconnect. So I rebooted the router, it came back up, dropped out, then came back up again. When I measured the speed on Speakeasy, it said we had a great signal, but SpeedOfMe said we didn't. Odd because they usually agree. Then I had to reconnect the Hopper with the router. The Hopper didn't even see any wifi signals! I had to reboot it, then set up the wifi again, and finally we could sit and watch. I'd forgotten how cute Ariel Tweto was. Always loved in the first episode how she admitted she didn't like the cold and was "the world's worst Eskimo." I also remember how I loved the Native American music they played in the background and that we heard on the radio station. Some of it is traditional music, and some of it is rock or pop sung in the local language.

James made pork chops for dinner, and we continued watching Flying Wild Alaska until it was time for the ten o'clock news.This batch of episodes included my favorite, where Jim goes off to deliver supplies to a hunting camp. He usually checks in with the base when he gets there and before he leaves, so they know he's okay and where to look if they don't hear from him. This time he starts chatting with the hunters and forgets. When he gets in, Ferno [his wife] strides out there and asks "Is your radio out?" He lamely tries to explain that he got busy and forgot, and then had to figure out how to take off again because of the way the water covered the landing strip, etc, but Ferno stares him down and says, "No call, no hugs, no dinner," and walks back inside. I love it! Guys don't understand. They're just bullshitting with the other guys, but we think they're dead in a ditch somewhere if they don't show up on time!

Labels: books, cleaning, crafts, decluttering, electronics, events, food, friends, health, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:50:00 PM

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As always, we did some grocery shopping after we got up and had breakfast (and gave Tucker his "morning airing." The milk was so expensive at Publix we skipped it. I could go out tomorrow and find cheaper milk. Once we had everything tucked away, I left James at the computer (internet was still up!) and went back to the book sale.

Sunday at the book sale, even at one in the afternoon, is pretty sparsely attended. The books are now pretty sparse, too, but what's left you can really look at, which is how I explain coming home with more books today than on Friday: a book about how television shapes our perceptions, a book about the "dumbing down" of the U.S., the diary of a woman who watches wildlife in her back yard, a volume of essays about Huckleberry Finn, an Ann Rinaldi historical I didn't have (John Brown's daughter), a "Swallows and Amazons" novel, and a collection of the Lord Darcy fantasy stories  (Maggi Weaver is always recommending them).

I decided I didn't want to go out tomorrow, as it's my housecleaning day, so on the way home I stopped at Kroger for milk and no-salt-added mushrooms.

And when I got home, the internet was down again. Eventually it quit flashing green-to-red and stayed solid red.

The tech I talked to yesterday implied someone should have been here today (but maybe tomorrow). And maybe I needed to make some noise. So I called up Earthlink and a good thing I did, because AT&T Guy from yesterday had not scheduled a Cable Guy to call (at least not per Earthlink's records). No soup for you, dude. In the meantime, I Spoke in Capital Letters again, and Earthlink assured me someone would be here between four and eight tomorrow and it would be fixed. I said I hoped so because people were asking me why I just didn't drop them and go to Comcast.

James made some nice beef for supper and we ended the day watching Guy's Grocery Games and Alaska: the Last Frontier.

(Later that next day: New AT&T Guy showed up a little before four and took an hour to sort out the problem. Turned out it was not The Box Near the House, but the Box Near the Church Down the Street. He said the "ports" were burned out, probably due to age, and he was going to complain about the guy who came on Saturday because he should have checked up there in the first place. He also finished burying the new wires they had to put in when they installed the broadband in February. He said they should have been completely buried and they never were.)

Labels: books, electronics, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:40:00 PM

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And so the year has rolled around again, and it was time on Friday for the Friends of the Library book sale. James had gotten up at the usual time to work, and I woke just a little later, so I could eat and walk Tucker. The days are long gone where I could skip breakfast before the book sale.

When I emerged from the bedroom James was frustrated beyond belief: the internet was down. Yes, I did look outside for an AT&T truck! This time there was none out there. First I reset the modem, then I unplugged it for five minutes. Neither did the trick: it was blinking fast green, then solid red for three to ten seconds, then back to flashing green. I gave James the phone numbers for Earthlink and went on to the book sale.

Ironically I didn't buy much for me: a book about a man hiking in Wales and another about traveling in England. (Alas, nothing in my usual series, and not a sign of the one World Book Christmas book I'm missing.) I did buy True North, which I thought James and I would both like: a bush pilot flying around Canada. I found two brand new books to use as gifts, and the rest were for James: a fighter pilot memoir and four of the Time-Life "Epic of Flight" books I thought he might enjoy: fighter pilots, aircraft carriers, bush pilots and the RAF.

When I came home, the internet was still down. James said it had come up for five minutes while he was on the phone with tech support, then failed again. They scheduled a tech to come out tomorrow afternoon, saying there was probably something wrong with the modem. I was a stubborn bugger and refused to believe it; pulled the plug and let it sit, and once again it came up for five minutes and then died, so I pulled the plug again, this time for twenty minutes then plugged it back in while we ate lunch and watched Doctor Simon Locke. It came back about 1:25. When it was still up at two, James logged back on and worked about an hour and it crashed again at three. Another plug pull, and it was off for a half hour, then came back up and stayed up. The modem my foot.

We ate supper at home and watched The Cool Kids and Hawaii overtaken by a heat wave on Hawaii Five-0.

This morning we were both up around eight. James had a meeting to get to, and I was going to Jessie Elder's 25th birthday party. (I can't believe both the girls are a quarter-century old! I remember holding Jessie when she was two days old and the size of a doll.) We had breakfast and I perambulated the pooch, then I swathed her gifts in tissue paper and put them in a gift bag and picked out a card. We both left about 10:30.

The birthday party was at the Mellow Mushroom up at Town Center; we were outside on the patio and it was still chilly enough that they had heaters running (I was in the odd position of being hot on one side and cool on the other). I sat between Alice and Terry and had a terrific time; we talked for hours. Jessie was doing well despite the health problems she has been having; she has to have more medical tests on Wednesday. Hopefully they can finally clear this up as it's been going on for a while. She had a lovely cake with a Beauty and the Beast theme, and Aubrey made her the most exquisite tiny gift: a necklace of a tiny bottle about an inch or so high with a sculpted rose inside it (like the Beast's rose).

After the party was over, I backtracked to JoAnn. When I put my phone in the Bracketron to use the GPS for directions to the Mellow Mushroom, both supports cracked and broke. I had a coupon on the JoAnn app for 40 percent off; they have some phone stuff at the checkout counter, including simple vent mounts. I got a black one.

Next wanted to check out At Home, since I haven't been there since they were Garden Ridge. Basically they just had a name change; the store looks the same. They already had aisles and aisles of Christmas ornaments, decor, and tchotchkes, plus a whole forest of trees. Their fall and Hallowe'en stuff was already picked over.

Finally I went to Hobby Lobby, just to check out stuff. Although I am planning to clean out my Hallowe'en decorations because I don't use most of them, I found two old-fashioned looking child figures among their things. I thought I would put it with the other two vintage looking decorations I have for a vintage display. I also bought some Christmas picks for a small vase that I am filling for a gift, and some autumn, Thanksgiving, and holly stickers for my journal.

I would have lingered longer except I realized I had to get home for the AT&T guy. Just as I pulled into the driveway James called saying AT&T was on the way (and so was he). The guy arrived within five minutes and I told him the system was back up, but I'd like him to check out things anyway. He did a speed test and concluded that nothing was wrong with the modem, so he went out to the switchbox. He told me that we have two lines to provide the service, and that on the line that is providing the broadband the copper is starting to corrode. So he has called the cable specialist to come out tomorrow or Monday to fix that, and that this should take care of the problem. Well, I hope so! James lost nearly $100 in pay due to yesterday's "little" outage.

We had supper at home and watched Father Brown and the Britcoms before bed.

Labels: books, crafts, electronics, friends, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:04:00 PM

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It's been a frustrating ten days.

New Year's was pleasant. We watched the Rose Parade (grand marshal Gary Sinese) and its colorful floats and equally colorful bands (a Japanese band had bright purple uniforms) and horses. Later we went to Alice and Ken's house to watch the Rose Bowl because the University of Georgia "Bulldogs" were one of the teams. I don't like football, but I have to admit it was a really good game; lots of suspense into two overtimes. The "Dawgs" won, which meant they went to the SEC championships. Alas, they lost that game in overtime to the University of Alabama this past Monday. Apparently the "Tide" was too high to resist.

The cold continued apace. It was cold even for me. LOL.

No one came to pick up the poor truck until Friday. We had left it out all afternoon on Thursday as they said they were coming by. Apparently there were so many wrecks over New Years' weekend they couldn't keep up. We have not heard what they are offering us yet, but today we found out the repair would be over $9,000. The truck was only worth a third that much. No word how much they will offer for the lift.

When I arrived back at work on the 2nd, I still had thirteen hours of use-or-lose remaining, so I took Thursday afternoon off and Friday. Thursday I took James to his nurse visit (thankfully his blood pressure was down) and then we looked at two local used car lots for cars. We also broached the idea of getting a small SUV. However, another Tacoma would be the best value, and we did find a promising one just down the street, near the house.

We also went vehicle hunting on Sunday, including cross town to a Toyota dealership. That was a bust, because all they had was a double cab, which won't fit in the garage with the lift. We came back, went by the Toyota used lot on Cobb Parkway where we saw an access cab that looked promising, but which was as old as the old truck. It was freezing—we were in our "Rhode Island winter coats" and bundled up like Randy in A Christmas Story—but the salesman was very helpful. Finally we headed up to the Toyota lot at Town Center. They had a very nice 2011 in "pyrite," so we decided to keep an eye on that one.

However, James finally decided on a 2014 white Tacoma from the lot near our house. We took it on a test drive, kept it overnight, and then brought it to our mechanic, who found it needed brakes and the tires were suffering from dry rot and it had a broken door hinge, but otherwise was good mechanically. The dealership agreed to fix those three things and we should have it by the end of the week. We have an appointment to put a new trailer hitch on it next week and Mobility Works is ordering a new lift. (The old lift cannot be fixed. Once it is even slightly damaged they cannot guarantee its structural integrity anymore.)

We also tried out Wade's Diner and didn't think much of it.

We had our Twelfth Night party as usual, this year on Epiphany itself. We had a small but fun crowd, and missed Mel and Phyllis, who were home with a cold. Aubrey found the pickle on the tree as always. Gifts were exchanged and enjoyed.

A few weeks ago we got an offer from Earthlink for their "Hyperlink" service (broadband through the phone line). We were doing okay on DSL but we are still considering "cutting the cord." I made an appointment to get it yesterday because the salesman said it only took about an hour, an hour and a half to install. They assign you a time, and since James had to take the white pickup over to the mechanic to get it checked out anyway, I figured that would work.

Well, this turned out to be a fripping nightmare. The Hyperlink is installed via AT&T. Yesterday's technician showed up, turned off the phone without telling me (I was in the middle of an order), then went through the house testing all the phone jacks to find the one that was loose so he could connect the modem to hardwire to the computers. Once he found that, he installed the modem, but it wouldn't update. He kept going back and forth outside and then finally decided there was something wrong with the outside line and called an AT&T tech to come fix it. This dude was outside for about four hours, and when I noticed he was in the truck (this was after dark by now) I went to ask him what was going on, since when the first tech left we had a dial tone and now we didn't. He thought it was fixed and expressed surprise about the missing dial tone, and had to go to the box on the main street to turn it back on. It was horribly scratchy, and even though the Hyperlink hadn't been installed, we had no DSL at all and couldn't even fall back on it. For some reason my dial-up modem would not work, either.

Plus James had missed a day of work, I'd missed most of a day of work, and I was madder than a wet hen. I called up Earthlink and gave them a piece of my mind, but since the call center isn't even in the U.S. it's not like they really care.

By this time the first tech had gone off duty. They promised me someone would be here at 9 a.m. today to finish the install. I didn't let it wait. Since I couldn't sleep anyway—I had hurt my left leg on the stairs during the day—I was on the phone with Earthlink customer service at eight and finally found the Atlanta number and called them at eight thirty. During the latter call I got someone named Debbie and she called up AT&T and made sure someone was on their way.

He indeed got here at nine, but it took him over three hours to get it going. He had to work on the box on our street, and then the main junction box on the cross street, back and forth, and finally, to get our dial tone back, had to lay a new line just for the phone (someone will be out to bury it next week). He didn't say it aloud, but apparently the dude who worked on the box yesterday didn't know what he was doing. Anyway, finally we had a solid green light, and one by one we could attach the computers. The cell phones and the tablets were the least trouble because all you have to do is show Android a picture of wi-fi and it connects. 😊 Even the ancient Blu-ray player attached to the modem and it hasn't spoken to the wi-fi signal in five years! It took us, however, at least another hour to get the most critical unit attached: James' work laptop. The other two computers were a cinch: find the modem, tell it to connect, type in the cybernetic salad that's the password, and you're in. The work laptop wasn't that simple because we also had to set the connection parameters (what level of security and in which format, which we didn't know until James found the specs on the modem). That didn't get done until 2 p.m. James' supervisor sounded really testy this morning when he called in saying the internet was still down, so he worked an additional hour to make up for not being available in the morning.

There has been entirely too much drama already this month.

And I've only just begun putting Christmas back up! Only the kitchen and the foyer are cleared so far.

Labels: accidents, cars, Christmas, electronics, food, friends, holidays, parties

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:38:00 PM

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