Posted tagged ‘Mac’

“Of course it hurts, it’s a spanking. How else would it work?”

October 25, 2015

Yesterday, when I rebooted the crazed machine, a new problem appeared. I kept getting a box wanting the password for something saved in the keychain. I’d cancel and another box would appear. Every password I could think of wasn’t the right one. I used my iPad to look for help but no suggestions worked. I finally opened in safe mode and read my mail but couldn’t do much else. I shut the machine down and rebooted too many times to count, but the same damn box kept appearing, and I kept putting in passwords I’d tried before which didn’t work. On one such attempt, the box disappeared and didn’t reappear. Horns blew, confetti fell, bands played and I was crowned queen with a tiara and a sash reading Miss MAC of 2015.

Today is dreary. The air is damp and cold. It’s a day to stay inside cozy and warm. I am just about better. The quarantine signs can come down. My neighbor dropped by yesterday to make sure I was okay as he hadn’t seen me. I assured him I was on the happy road to recovery.

My mother never liked to spank us. That privilege she reserved for my father. The infrequent times she did we had to pretend it hurt, but it really never did. She finally caught on and her tactics changed. She’d throw things at us. We could duck, but that didn’t stop her. She had a tactic for that too. After she’d thrown the slipper and missed, she’d tell whichever of us was the target to bring the slipper back. We knew she’d use the slipper on us if we brought it back. It was for us a no win situation. Bring it back and get hit or not bring it back and get it worse later. We usually brought it back. Luckily she wore soft slippers.

Spanking wasn’t really the main punishment in our house. We were usually sentenced to solitary confinement in our bedrooms, a punishment I loved. Spanking was reserved for the worst offenses. “I’m telling your father,” was always the bad omen. He was the ogre. The afternoon always stretched forever then he’d come home. Sometimes my mother never told him, and we could breathe again. Other times she was so angry she told him and I swear she always embellished the story. He never spanked us so long after the incident, but he did find ways to punish us, usually taking away something we loved or grounding us so we’d miss something we had been looking forward to. I always preferred my mother and her slipper.

“They talked in the shorthand of old friends and shared memories.”

October 11, 2015

Where have I been? I’ve been right here at my computer tearing out my hair and cursing. I upgraded my Mac to El Capitan, the newest operating system. Everything went just fine until this morning when I found my computer running in a gentle lope across cyberspace. I checked and the computer had jumped to the xfinitywifi so I clicked MissKat, my wifi. It wouldn’t connect so I jumped right back on xfinity to do some sleuthing. It seems that El Capitan and Linksys haven’t yet to meet each other so my MAC wouldn’t recognize my wifi. I went hunting to find a solution and didn’t find one. I then tried to connect with the Linksys set-up, but it was taking so long I had time to go downstairs and put my laundry in to wash. It never did connect. I’m now thinking I’ll go back to Yosemite where my Linksys was quite happy and comfortable and felt right at home.

Last night was the dinner, the last reunion event. It was wonderful. I loved it when the cheese, dip and all else hand food lady told me she expected the elderly when she heard it was a 50th reunion. She told me we didn’t look old at all. I’m thinking it was a compliment but maybe it was in comparison to her mental images of what we should look like. The food was delicious and the venue was perfect. It is an old bank, the same one where my parents had had their mortgage. It has been renovated into the Yarmouth Social Center which hosts a variety of events like music, art shows and one I loved, costumes from movies. More people were there last night than at the cocktail party so I got to see more of my classmates. One, whose brother was also in our class, connected with him in FaceTime. He is at the Mayo Clinic. She went from table to table so we could all say hello.

The evening ended early, but every minute of it was filled to the brim with remembered friendships and memories. I think that is best part of any reunion.

“Wherever it came from, the musical came with its hair mussed and with an innocent, indolent, irreverent look on its bright, bland face.”

August 9, 2011

It’s a beautiful day in our neighborhood. The sun is brightly shining and glinting sharply here and there between the leaves of the oak trees. Even the horrific tenants next door are quiet enough so I can open my window. The birds are singing, happily I presume, and they’re at the feeders enjoying breakfast. Gracie and the cats are napping. It feels idyllic, perfect to inspire some sort of a poem, a short one like an Emily Dickinson’s.

I’m going off cape today to the Apple store. I probably shouldn’t as it is an occasion for sin as the nuns would say. I think the Apple store entices me to spend and be an electronic glutton, but I’m looking for some technical help. When I bought my Mac, I paid for one on one tutoring, and that’s what I’m getting today. I figured out to copy the Ghana 1969-1971 DVD Tim made but got flummoxed when it appeared as two files so I couldn’t figure out how to copy it. They’ll show me, and by the time I get home, I’ll have forgotten so I’m bringing a pad of paper.

This is a busy week for me with something every day. Most are social events. The play this week on Friday is another musical. My friend, Tony, a musician, gets personally offended because I don’t like musicals. I tell him I love music, but that doesn’t soothe his feelings which I hate to hurt, but I can’t lie. I love drama and mystery and comedies, not a play where someone sings when words could work as well or even better. I appreciate music, but I appreciate even more the turn of a phrase or the cleverness of a playwright. I’ll go this week as I skipped the last musical, but I saw a musical just last week at the other theater so I think I’m being punished.

I figure hell isn’t fire and brimstone. We are stuck for eternity with what drives us crazy. People who don’t like kids will be in a room with thousands of terrible two’s all of whom need their diapers changed. Speed demons will be buckled into cars which go no more than 5 MPH.  Beer drinkers, never seen without a bottle in hand, will be a hand’s length away from an ever flowing tap. I will be stuck in a theater watching the same musical over and over. It will be one like Carrie which is on every worst musical list. The devil will chose singers who sing off-key, which, I suppose, doesn’t make them singers at all. I will have to sit there performance after performance listening to lines like,

“All we ever do is park
Then for hours you grope me in the dark”