Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 1 p. 572
1.3 miles
cloudy and cold, warmer (60s?) during the day
348 recordings of 64 types, 1 old SVU (almost done here), 51 old CPD, and 50 old Last Man Standing. 25% clear.
It all started with a few computer glitches back in early December. I poked around to find out what to do about them, and must have triggered something.
But this past week was something else. My phone went out the Thursday before Christmas, and when I reported it on Friday morning, I was promised a technician would be here Friday the 29th by 8PM. Hoping that something would happen earlier, I spent Tuesday through Friday here in the house, with my cell phone on. I did dash out Tuesday morning to see if I could find a Christmas tree for next year, but no such luck. The pre-lit trees that were left were too tall. Oh, well. I'm still throwing this one out so I will HAVE to buy a new one next year. Vince forgot to call on Tuesday. I suggested FaceTime, but at the time he called on Wednesday that didn't work, as my iPad had gone off.
Oh, and that night my light bulb popped.
On Wednesday I was looking at the credit card bill and spied a suspect charge from December 5. See above. I looked in my diary, nothing, and checked on the internet to find "mycomputersupport.com" which had "SCAM" written right after it, so I disputed the charge and immediately lost that credit card with a new one coming in three days. I had enough cash on hand in case the phone guy charged for the service (which would happen if it was somehow my fault, though I doubted that.) Only one bill was coming due that week, TracFone, so I wasn't too worried. Of course, it did come due on Thursday so I called and explained. And I thought that was set, but when I got the card I immediately called them and it was long and involved... something that should have been simple was terribly complicated by the Indian woman on the line.
I worked on the jigsaw puzzle, days 4 and 5. It's amazing how much quicker this one is than the Rosetta Stone! I was wishing I could sleep in, since I had nowhere to go, but was awake by 4 every single day of that week.
I had a hot flash. This is hypoglycemia, which means I've been TOO low carb along the way. I hope the A1C test is good... I'm really tired of being so very very good.
Thursday I cut oleander along the driveway. This night I went to bed leaving the TV on, so at 4 I saw all those strange lights coming from the living room!
Friday my card came, so I had a lot of time notifying people of the new number. I got Amazon right but it took 3 tries and as many days to finally get Apple right. It was good I had the Amazon right, because my DVD player wouldn't open and give me back the Netflix disc it had. I eventually pried the tray out, but the disc fell into the machine. So I took the top off, and got the disc out unharmed, but obviously needed a new DVD player, and ordered a refurbished Sony with a 3-year warranty. And finally, at 7 Friday night, the phone guy came. He tested all the phones, and all the jacks (which involved taking a lot of the junk in the back room out of the way, and it was all bootless anyway.) He finally decided the short was probably in the attic. I didn't want to tackle the attic with that awful fluff insulation and who knows how many rat corpses, what to do? He decided to wire a new phone jack piggy-backed on the U-verse jack, which is at last in the living room (what a mess if it had still been in the back!) He put my kitchen phone on it as a temporary fix, which was awkward. I ordered a cordless phone with three handsets... the base will be in the living room and the other phones in my bedroom and the kitchen, and of course I can wander around the house with them.
So Saturday I first went on a walk to Trader Joe's for eggnog and to CVS for scotch tape. The 4 pounds of eggnog got heavy by the time I got home. In the late morning I tried to go to see "Darkest Hour" but had the wrong time, and the 3 PM show would have been too late, as I needed to go to Saturday Evening Mass. Which I did. Then when I came home in the dark I could see dark reflective spots on the carport floor. Uh-oh. I had an oil leak.
Before the festivities on New Year's Eve, I went out to a morning coffee geocaching get-together. And the final thing that is falling apart is ME! When I went to get out of the car, my left hand cramped up and wouldn't stop for about 10 minutes. Ow ow ow ow ow. The first time I had a hand cramp was in Spain and there's only been one other since. It's either dehydration (which would be Spain) or a lack of potassium, so I had to get bananas.
