Just Strange

22 degrees and beautiful sunshine today

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I have been feeling so strange lately.  

When I wake up in the morning, I have this really funny feeling that something bad is just about to happen.  This morning I woke up and felt like I was forgetting something real important.

I can't put my finger on any of it, but I sort of stumble around all morning long, wondering what I am supposed to remember, or what I am supposed to be doing, or what terrible thing is going to happen.

Weird, uneasy feelings.  Like I'm in limbo--hard to explain.  I wonder if I am starting senility?

A scary thing happened Sunday.  Someone had tried to access my e-mail account, and I couldn't get any e-mails off the main server.  Every time I put in my login ID, it was fine, but my password was no longer working.  So I contacted Comcast, via live chat, to resolve the problem and reset my password.  We got it all straightened out in a few moments and they gave me a new password to use to get into my account so I could reset my password to a new one.

I use the same password for everything, but I think I do need to change some of my passwords on Face Book, e-mail account, bank account, etc.  So, I was going to use Fred's initials.

For the life of me, I could not remember his middle name!  I sat for a half hour, trying to remember his middle name.  Why couldn't I remember his middle name!!?

I refused to look it up, because I HAD to remember it on my own.  I stared out the window and wondered what was wrong with me.  I know his middle name as well as I know my own!  I know his birth date, the date of our first date, the day he moved in with me, the day we were engaged, the date we left to go to the Outer Banks, the date of his heart attack and his heart surgery. Was he named after his father?  No.  I remembered his father's name and his mother's name, where each one was born and where Fred was born.but do you think I could remember his middle name?

NOT A CLUE!!  It was very frustrating and scary.  What is wrong with my brain?

Then I remembered something his mother said ONE TIME.  She had a high school sweetheart and she gave his name to Fred as his middle name = Leroy.  Frederick Leroy Zuehlke.

What a weird way to go through that process to come up with his middle name when I should have known it right from the start.

So these thoughts have been going on in my head.  Perhaps I have too much time to just spend alone and sit and think.  Perhaps I should get out and go to the Senior Center--engage my brain in some lively Bingo or Euchre?  (Both of which I hate to play).  Maybe I should date, just to have human contact and conversion?  (ARGGH!)  Maybe I should be more spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment? (Which would be a real stretch, as I've never been like that in my entire life!  Spontaneous to me, is having someone ask me at 9:00 in the morning, if I'd like to go out to supper that evening.)

Strange feelings and I have no idea why--I just feel like my "bulb" is getting dim!

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I went up to Pearl's this afternoon to try and figure out how to get her back into her bank on-line.  I opened up her computer and the ASK search page came up..  Two months ago I finally figure out how to get that off her computer and kill it and now...it's right back there.

Interesting conversation:

"How did that get back on there?" she asked.

"You must have downloaded something and it got installed again."

"I DID NOT!  All I do is play games on Face Book and go into my bank.  That's all I do."

"Well, I don't know how it got installed again, but it did."

"I hate computers!  They never work like you want them too.  They won't let me go into my bank and now this--that damn computer just installed this thing and I don't like it!"

"You can't get into your bank account because you entered the wrong ID and password so many times that the bank's computer system thought you were a hacker, so they shut down your on-line ability."

"Well why didn't they tell me that?  I would just type that I'm no hacker, it is MY account and I want in. "

"That's exactly what a hacker would say."

"Well then  how did the ASK page suddenly become my search engine?"

"You installed it someway.  You either downloaded a game or something and along came the ASK toolbar and search engine."

"I did not!  I tell you...I DID NOT!"

Merle said, "Okay girls...no fighting."

"Well I didn't!" she said.

"Tell me what you did last night on the computer, because when I was down yesterday afternoon, ASK was not your search engine, Google Chrome was."

"I came in during the ballgame to play on Face Book.  There was an ad of some sort that popped up on the screen and I clicked it and it wouldn't go away, so I kept clicking on it.  One thing after another came up and finally...it left."

"Okay--you installed the ASK toolbar and search engine when you did all that clicking."

"What was I supposed to do to get it to go away?"

"You click on the "X" on the top right hand corner of that page or on the right upper corner of the ad.  That's how you get it to go away."

"I heard on TV that your computer knows you better than your spouse or your best friend.  Every time I start that computer up, it sees me and knows it's me and it does all sorts of bad stuff."

"Pearl, calm down."

"I am calm, but I'm just telling you what happens!"

"Okay, listen to me.  The computer cannot see you.  It wouldn't know if it was you sitting in front of it or if it was me or the cat.  The computer is a machine...just like your toaster, it will only do what you tell it to do.  By going all nervous and clicking on that ad, and then clicking and clicking, you installed whatever that ad and the junk that came along with it.  My putting in the wrong ID and password on your bank page...the first time it told you that you had entered the wrong ID, you should have stopped and slowly re-entered the correct ID.  Instead you kept trying to put in a new ID.  If you put two slices of bread in your toaster and set it to the highest number of toasting time, you'd get burned toast.  If you keep punching the wrong button on your keyboard, you are going to get burned also."

"Yeah--I know all that, you told me that before, but...I don't believe you.  That computer has a brain and it knows when I start it up and it....messes with me."

"Tomorrow we will call customer service at the bank and have them reset everything so you can get into your account."

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I am almost done with this book.  I really have enjoyed it.  If you read and enjoyed "The Shack", you would like this book too.