It...Was a Day...Like Many, but Better

Today's high temperature was:  83 degrees

Today's humidity was:  56%

Too hot for me and too humid.

Tonight--nice cool front going through.

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I finally got to open the front door and windows this evening around 8:00.  Lots of rain south of me, but the cool front it going through and taking the humidity with it.  Tomorrow is suppose to be "delightful".  I am so glad--I like delightful!!

So--this morning I got up later--8:15, which is still about 45 minutes too early for me, but....what can I say.  I guess I am sleeping better?

I missed Fred today.  I have no idea why.  It's not an anniversary of anything special.  I don't know.  He was just on my mind a lot and I found  myself sighing and really lonesome of his voice and smile and arms around me.  Fat lot of good that is going to do me!!!  Get a grip woman!!!  <sigh>

I walked down to Pearl's around 9:30.  I intended to call Comcast and have them walk me through what is wrong with her e-mail connection.  Her internet connection works just fine--she cannot get her e-mail to open--which makes no sense.  If her internet connection is working, so should her e-mail.  I went through all the steps in her "options" and "accounts" and all the information in there is correct.  Then I picked up her new phone, that she bought so she could bundle it with Comcast and it was dead.  No dial tone.  

She lost is right about then!!

"Why do I have such bad luck with this computer?  It's like it has something against me!!"  (I thought she was going to cry.)

"Hon...it isn't against you.  It is just a machine...like your mixer.  If something is wrong inside...your mixer wouldn't work.  Not because it had anything against you, but...just because something was broken."

"But my mixer works great!"

"and so will your computer if...you add more memory, a new video card and audio card."  (because for some reason her speakers do not work now--although they did yesterday.)

So I looked around in back of the computer and found a cord that was just hanging there--plugged it into the back of her computer and...her speakers worked.  Ta Dah!!

She has this "thing" about all the cords behind her computer.  She keeps trying to straighten them all out.  Is bound and determined she is going to enclose them in empty paper towel tubes.  In her efforts to do this, she keeps pulling out wires, where they are plugged in, and doesn't realize it or doesn't know where to plug them back in and......things quit working.  Just like yesterday when she called me down all in a panic because she couldn't get an internet connection, only for me to find her router was unplugged.  She had to get in and check her bank account to make sure her Social Security deposit was there.  She was still frantic this morning.

"Why would you worry about your deposit.  Has it ever been late or not showed up in your bank?"

"No.But you never can tell.  With this government...I heard Obama was going to take away our Social Security and our Medicare!"

"No---I think it's the Republicans who are going to do that"

"WHAT!!?"

"Only kidding.  It depends on which report you read from which group.  No one is going to take your Social Security or Medicare away!"

"Well--I wondered about that.  They can't take Social Security away from me...I put that money in that saving's account all the years I worked!"

I smiled.

"What?  Why are you smiling?"

"Well--actually...I hate to tell you this, but....."

"What?"

"You didn't put anything away in a savings account.  The money you paid in for Social Security, they were using to support and fund the people who were already on it.  Now, the money we get every month, comes from our kids and other worker's pay checks."

"What?  I don't understand."

"No one is going to take away your Social Security."

"I'm done with this computer.  Don't even call Comcast.  They can't help.  It's the computer, not them."

So we went out into the front room and chatted for awhile--then I came home.

She has cable on her TV--which would cost her $45.00 a month.  But to get a better deal, she bundled her computer and a non-existent phone and is paying $130.00 a month.  She is paying for an internet high speed computer, which doesn't work and a phone land-line, which also doesn't work.  She only uses the internet to check on her bank balance--she could call the bank for that.  She hates the computer--she doesn't use her land-line--doesn't even know the number, so...why...doesn't she just get the connection for her TV?

So I called the computer place where I get work done and asked them if they have a technician that makes house calls--they do--and what it would cost to get her a new computer--$350.00.  I just about dropped my teeth.  $350.00 is all?  Brand new.  Windows 7 operating system.  Microsoft Office suite and enough mega bytes and gigabytes to last her from here to eternity!!!  They would take her hard drive and put her pictures over onto the new one--as that is all she has on her hard drive she'd want to save basically.

My computer is seven years old--it cost me $800.00, which at the time seemed like a good deal.  Heck--I should give her mine and got get a new one for myself, LOL!!  She came down later and I told her what I had found out.

"I don't have that kind of money." she wailed.

"Sure you do.  You told me you have been putting money aside and you have over one thousand dollars."

"Well...yes I do, but that money is for a new refrigerator."

"What is wrong with the one you have."

"Nothing...I just want a new one so I can get a bottom freezer."

Okay.  I AM DONE!!!  (I think I have said that before!)

If she had a decent computer I think she would really love it--there would be nothing to make her frustrated.  She could access her bank account, her e-mail, FaceBook--all the damn games she wants to play, but NO--she would rather get a new refrigerator which she does not need--just so she can have a bottom freezer, which she will hate because SHE CAN'T BEND OVER TO GET INTO IT!!!

I GIVE UP!!!  I GIVE UP!!! I GIVE UP!!!

She knows her options concerning a computer now and it is up to her what she wants to do.  I will NEVER mention it again!!!!!

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The dish washer repair guy came this afternoon--what a nice young man!!! I told him I wouldn't "hover" and he said I was more then welcome to stand there and watch and ask questions and he wanted to show me how to do maintenance on the drain anyway.  YAY--right up my alley.

He showed me how to take off the lower washer arm and get the sump out and take out the filter (which I had no clue DW's had filters), how to clean them and how to put them back in.

Everyone has been more then willing to tell me Frigidaire is the worse appliance I could have, but he said, "That's not so.  I have one myself.  You can't beat the price."  which is true.

He practically tore the underneath stuff apart and took out the drain pump and it was fine (YAY), cleaned everything--even blew compressed air into the drain pipe, and put it all back together.  Then--he asked me what kind of dish washing detergent I used and I showed him my big plastic tub full of Cascade power pellets and he said, "May I suggest you never use that ever again?"

"Why?"

"You live in a hard water, heavy calcium area.  It clogs up the drain and drain pipe.  Just a minute--I'll be right back."

He goes out to his truck and comes back in.

"This is what our store manager recommends to all our customers in this area."

He handed me a small box with 4 Finish Quantum pellet thingies in it.  Then he handed me 4, really nice, big cash off coupons to buy more.

"The Finish will not only help keep your dish washer clean, but it will also keep the calcium from clogging up the drain--even the drain from the kitchen to outside.  Every month, I want you to use this...Finish Dish Washer cleaner and use the Jet Dry to keep your dishes from being all spotty--it also helps keep things inside the dish washer clean and will keep the lime build up off your dishes."

Then he noticed my collection of wooden carved people and wanted to know all about them and the story behind the wooden boxes I have.  "I love vintage things like this," he said.  I just wanted to adopt him!!!!!

I had a really nice 90 minutes and I learned another maintenance chore and you all know--that makes me real happy.  I so like to be able to handle these kinds of things by myself.

One thing I noticed, as I was cleaning the filter--it was full of lint!  How did lint get into my dish washer?

Now, I will spend the next few days trying to figure that out.

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Tomorrow is going to be an interesting morning--I think.  Going to an PhD-MD psychiatrist (not psychologist) to see what he might recommend for me to be on to help with my depression/manic episodes/obsessiveness/compulsions/weird thoughts and remarks. I can't wait to see his diagnosis.  

(If you don't hear from me for a few days--I will be resting in the padded cell, on the 4th floor of the hospital.)