First, I woke to a loud pop, pouring rain and no electricity. Apparently the loud pop was a transformer gone wild. So, I dragged myself out of bed to call the electric company and got the standard, “We apologize for any inconvenience.” “Inconvenience Lady! I’m calling you using a flashlight!” That is what I wanted to say, but instead I remained cool, calm, and polite, which sometimes in situations like these, is not easy for me. This time, I knew it wasn’t her fault or that of some incompetent person who screwed up. (That’s probably a blog all its own)

Besides I was saving my tirade for AT&T. An hour later the power came on, and I quickly checked my computer to find that AT&T had finally reset my DSL, but the modem wouldn’t work. Now, this is a real inconvenience, and once again came the apologies which I had heard for the last two days, so I just told the lady to forgo all the canned statements and FIX MY INTERNET!!! Remember in an earlier blog (Yes, I’m Internet Dependent), I wrote about not having service for a few days in Ruidoso, and I didn’t handle it well. Ditto, this time!

And actually this whole problem was self-induced! For the first time ever, I had decided that I was going to be gone so long that I would put the home phone on “vacation.” Bad decision on my part, but my understanding was that AT&T would turn on the phone and DSL on the agreed upon date. Wrong! Not only were neither working when I returned, the DSL was completely disconnected so I had to start over like a new customer.

After five days of no DSL, I then spent two hours with some representative in Michigan, getting the modem to reconnect and so on. The first 30 minutes I got the idea that her morning hadn’t started out too well, either, but shortly thereafter she warmed up and we sort of bonded I guess, because she told me what she had for breakfast—pretzels and peanut butter.  Then in the middle of the “modem fix” I heard a loud slurp and she said she was having a cup of tomato soup!!!! Geez, Lady. I really didn’t need to know about the weather in Michigan or the fact that she was going to spend some time in Ft. Worth this summer, but admittedly, we did have a lot of wait time, while things were rebooting and so forth.

Finally, I was back on line and much happier, but running way behind schedule. After a haircut, I returned home to put on my make-up and get ready for the first signing at 1:00, and guess what??? The electricity went off AGAIN. Now, I wasn’t about to go to the book signing with one eye made up and one not, so I dragged all my paraphernalia and a small mirror to the nearest window for light. Presto, the power returned; I finished my second eye—thank goodness I don’t have more than two because the power went off again, but I was ready and out the door. (to be continued)

Internet Dependent

My Internet service was down for two and a half days, and I was a miserable wreck. How crazy is that? But I couldn’t help it. I hate being so dependent on a system that is out of my control and at the same time demands my upmost attention. But I am. There were plenty of other things I could do, and I did, but it was just knowing that I couldn’t “get on” that drove me “batty.”

Although I have a Blackberry and could receive and send emails, it just wasn’t the same. For one thing, it takes me forever to type on my phone. The combination of itsy, bitsy, tiny numbers and having to use the “alt” key and so forth adds to my already high level of frustration. What starts out as “Just got your message,” often ends up as “;ust /+( Y)-r mE44*ge,” which then takes me an inordinate amount of time to fix! And since I don’t have a dictionary here, and I am entirely at the mercy of Google, I can’t spell anything much more complicated than my name if I want to write off line.

Who would have thought a person, who growing up had a party line telephone, no television until she was two years old, and thought the eight track player was about the coolest thing ever invented, would ever slump to Internet dependence? I confess. And worse than that, I am not even close to being computer savvy so by the time I realized that it wasn’t me or my computer that was the problem, I had screwed up every setting, which I often do. One thing for certain, no one will ever call me a computer nerd.

The good news is I did get a Kindle for Christmas, and it’s working—just what I need, more technology!!