The blues of time change and computers--a frustrating day

 

Sophie on her princess pillow
looking a bit pensive
maybe it's the time change

I can adjust fairly well to the spring and fall time changes. Sophie cannot. Apparently she has a rather rigid interior clock that tells her when to do what. At seven this morning, she thought it was eight and wanted to go out. At three she thought it was four and I should get up from my nap—never mind that I didn’t even lie down until two-thirty. At four, she thought it was five and I should feed her. I’m hoping she’ll adjust, as she always has eventually, but it may be a rough couple of days.

I have my own problem with the time change. Apparently re-setting my Apple watch is beyond my pay grade. I don’t remember ever having to do this before, but now it is giving me messages about pairing it with my phone. On the phone, there are two options: automatic or manual. If I’m reading it correctly, the automatic requires a position only a contortionist could achieve. So I tried manually—zipping right along until it wanted my Apple username and id. And of course Apple didn’t recognize my log-in. Knowing my fingers are clumsy I had Jordan try. Still no luck. I am convinced that if you don’t log in frequently, web sites erase all your information, because this happens to me a lot. I have sent an urgent message to the granddaughter who works at an Apple Genius Bar, but she replies via text that she isn’t getting my emails. The internet gods are against me.

I did have one small victory. I was stymied getting to all the ancillary files offered by the Sisters in Crime subgroup, the Guppies. In fact, when I went to groups.io, it didn’t even show that I belong to that group. I put out a help plea, the president answered, tried to help, referred me to the web-guppy. Turned out to be so easy. I logged out and when I logged back in of course io didn’t recognize my password (another of those mysterious disappearances). But I hit change my password, corrected it, and all is well.

That was a small victory in the face of overwhelming obstacles in another arena. I am trying to upload audio files of Saving Irene to two platforms—with luck, it will someday be my first audio book, but I am not holding my breath. Again, I sailed along entering metadata, and then came to uploading files. It simply wasn’t going to work—neither platform could get beyond the zip file to the individual files. I kept getting the message that my files were not MP3. But they were—if they could browse beyond the zip file. I have written for help to both companies. Meanwhile, I am gnashing my teeth.

And, yes, it was dusk and gray far too early today. Like when we were just beginning to think about dinner. Grilled chicken because I bought bone-in breasts by mistake (the perils of drive-by pick-up grocery shopping—I never can figure out what kind of chicken I’m getting!) and asparagus the way Aunt Reva used to make it. A sauce of sour cream, mayo, and lemon juice, topped by buttered bread crumbs. Aunt Reva (no real relation but much beloved) was a good Missouri farm girl, and oh boy, could she cook. But that’s another story for another day.

Stay safe everyone. And buckle up for an unpredictable week. If you can stay home, please do. There will be ruffians—nay, terrorists—abroad.