A day lost to technology—or was it?

 

Jacob working on assembling the composter

The finished assembly

You have no idea what a triumph those two pictures represent. It’s not just that Jacob put the composter together and got it set up out in the driveway—though that in itself is a victory. But the big deal is that I took those pictures with my phone and was finally able to send them to my computer, so that I could use them in a blog. Actually, I meant to use them several days ago when I blogged about the compost tumbler as part of the finally disappearing chaos at the cottage. But my phone wouldn’t cooperate.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, in the car coming back from Santa Fe, I noticed that I wasn’t getting any emails through my TCU account. Strange, because I always get at least 50 a day. The next day, home and settled, with my computer set up on my desk, I found a bunch of emails waiting on that account. And when I tried to send photos from my phone to my computer, nothing happened (which hampered my blogging a whole lot—my theory is a blog without pictures is mostly ignored).

Colin and I tried countless fixes over the phone—he in Tomball and me here at home. Nothing worked. If I have a computer problem, he takes over my computer and generally fixes it, but with the phone, he couldn’t see what was happening. He said I needed to get a Burton out here to Facetime with him and show him my phone, but it was a busy weekend, and I never found a tactful time to ask for that help. I told him I’d call the Help Desk at TCU—but I had to wait until Monday and TCU’s re-opening.

Monday came and went, Tuesday a doctor’s appointment took up too much of the day—I was stalling, because I was afraid trying to correct the problem would involve a long, long phone call with TCU and my inept computer skills would be revealed—and it was just something I dreaded. I was getting by because I still got emails on the computer, but the photo business really stymied me.

So this morning I called, and I got a lovely, understanding service tech named Cathleen. She walked me through re-installing the program (at some point I had deleted it from the phone)—something I had to do three times before I got it right, but she was patient, kept reassuring me. When it was all done, I had incoming mail on my phone and could send outgoing messages—but not photos.

Early afternoon Cathleen and I talked again, but by then I had on my own discovered a work-around: I’m not sure what you’d call the method I’d been using for years, but I activated Outlook on the phone and discovered I could send photos through that app. Hence, the photos you see.

An unrelated problem: in trying to make a call the other day, my thumb slid across the screen and suddenly the phone stopped speaking to my hearing aids. I could hear on different settings but not as clearly, and if someone called me, it went to the aids and was fine. Magically, this afternoon that corrected itself. Mine not to question, but I am pretty sure somewhere in all my dealings with TCU I turned the phone off and back on again, and I suspect the hearing aid program reset itself when I did that.

As you may tell, I have strong technology insecurities, so today was a long, trying day. (Okay, yes I had a nap—I told Cathleen I would be “out of pocket” or a couple of hours!). Still, it is always a relief to me to have all my technological things—computer, phone, hearing aids—working smoothly so I don’t have to worry about them.

And it’s also a relief when your cardiologist says, “See you in a year!” Thanks to Christian for taking me all the way to Harris Southwest for the appointment.

Things are looking up. Now if I can just get a handle on this cookbook/memoir about the Fifties.

Sweet dreams, y’all.

Mercury must be in retrograde

 

Or else there’s a spot on the moon. Something is out of whack. This morning, nothing electronic would work for me. Turned on my computer to find “No Wi-Fi connection.” Usually this isn’t a problem—I know how to reconnect in seconds. But this morning, the connection wouldn’t hold. Before I could get back to whatever I was reading, I was disconnected again. I finally rebooted, and it has, knock on wood, seemed okay all day.

In the emails I was checking, I found something I wanted to print. Printer was offline. I did everything I know to do—turning the printer off and on, checking the cache, and so on. It would print one document and then nothing. Then it began to print multiple copies of anything—including a ten-age document I printed by mistake when I thought I was getting a 1099 or whatever it is we need for tax purposes. I got so many copies of an air fryer recipe for Brussel sprouts I sent one into the house for Christian and used two others for scratch paper.

An email from my bank informed me that I had an inactive account and please contact them before they had to retrieve it from the State of Texas lost accounts. So I called the 24-hour number and could hear someone on the other end saying, “Hello? Hello?” while I was shouting, “I’m here! Can you hear me?” She couldn’t, and I heard her say in disgust, “No response.” Called back and began the conversation with “Can you hear me?” which no doubt confused the representative on the other end. She could, was pleasant and helpful, but it took a long time.

Next I called the alarm company because my security system was out of whack, and I forgot the password. Got a truly nice gentleman who helped me along. Without the password I had to identify the two emergency contacts, who no surprise turned out to be Jordan and Christian. But when asked Christian’s phone number, my mind went blank. I began guessing at figures. The rep suggested I look it up on my phone and assured me I would not lose his call. I lost his call. Bless him, he called me back. He asked me to go to the keypad, so I had to explain about the walker and how slow I am. He was patience personified. I went to the keypad, followed his instructions, and alI was good. At his request, I went back to my computer to schedule a routine service call—and somehow muted the volume on my hearing aids. If he hadn’t yet figured out he was dealing with a doddering old woman, he knew then. I put the phone on speaker, but everything he said was fuzzy. He finally worked it out, I have a service call on my calendar, and I have unmuted my hearing aids (I didn’t even know there was a mute function—might be good to know).

The day wasn’t over yet. I called the company that handles TCU retirees’ benefits, waited through that “We are experiencing a high volume of calls” message, and got a representative fairly quickly. But she could not help me and connected me to a licensed insurance counselor. I waited … and waited … and when I finally talked to him, he advised me to call my dentist and my insurance company. I gave up for the day.

All this on top of the fact that last night I “invented” a turkey meatloaf. It was meh. And now we have leftovers, which I had for lunch. Slathered with mayonnaise it was a bit better. Tonight I’m going to try hamburger Stroganoff. Wish me luck.

Stay safe, folks. Now there’s a new subvariant of Omicron and nobody is sure how serious it is, but they seem sure that it is even more contagious. Some days I think we can’t win. My mom taught me, however,  that tomorrow will be a better day. Mom, I hope you’re listening, and I hope you were right.