All those things I don’t do well

I can figure my way around a paragraph or a page of prose and I’m pretty much okay in the kitchen, but outside those areas I’m at a loss. Several years ago when I was director of TCU Press, the editor was a man who could fix—or jerry-rig—most things. I have forgotten what the occasion was, but I will always remember him saying to someone, “She’s not exactly handy.” The result is that when I do the slightest mechanical thing, I tend to be inordinately proud of myself.

In the last couple of days, I have “fixed” three things, and I am bursting with pride. Never mind that one of them just involved deliberately leaving the thing alone. The commode in my cottage wouldn’t flush. Since I do not have two bathrooms in my small quarters, that’s a real problem. It not only wouldn’t flush, it wasn’t making plumbing noises like it was working on something. So I left it alone. Two hours later, it flushed perfectly! Deliberately ignoring a problem is part of my tool kit.

The light in the panel in my refrigerator door that goes on when you get water or ice? It suddenly was on and stayed on. Now in my small quarters, nothing is far apart, and that light bothered me at night when I slept. I finally got so I pulled the pocket door between bedroom and kitchen partly closed. I meant to ask Christian about it—until I discovered a light bulb image on the control panel.  Pushed it, and voila! The light went out. See how handy I am.

The third thing—and these things always come in threes—that broke was my Apple watch. I put it on the charger and saw that instead of the usual panel of numbers, I saw just the corner of one big number. After it charged, it was the same. My phone does that sometimes and I simply reboot it. Not an option with the watch. There’s only one button you can push on the phone, and I pushed it. Nothing. So I called the genius granddaughter who works at an Apple Genius Bar in Boulder. She said we’d zoom the next day. Meantime I remembered what she told me—the watch is nothing by itself. It needs the cell phone, which is essentially its switchboard. So I opened the watch app on the phone—I wish I could tell you what I hit after that, but I just kind of touched buttons. I think it was “complications” which sounded logical to me. Anyway, suddenly the phone was back to normal.

I wrote that to genius granddaughter but told her I’d still like a zoom call to see her pretty face. Still waiting tonight, though she said she’d’ call sometime after she got out of class.

So that’s three things I have fixed—or ignored while they fixed themselves: the toilet, the light on the fridge, and my watch. Color me proud, and let’s not talk about the fact that Christian had to show me tonight how to use a pill cutter.

Apparently there are horrendous storms headed this way. Thunder is rolling in the distance and I see lightning flashes. Reports from a friend who is about forty miles to the west at a local lake is that it is like a hurricane. Sophie is in, and I have given her a Benadryl, just because. I enjoy a good storm, but I’m aware of the dangers. When Jacob came out with word of it, I asked him to check on us after it passes.

Be safe, stay inside, and hide under the covers until the storm passes.