Month: March 2023

Posted on

Oh, My GOD! As if I’m not stressed enough.

This morning I was having my coffee when my doorbell rings.

It was a sheriffs deputy. Guess what, he was doing a wellness check on me.

WHAT THE FUCK????

The minute he asks if I know a particular person I know exactly what’s going on and I’m fucking livid! I have never been so angry at anyone in my life.

I wasn’t angry at the officer, I was angry at the person who called the fucking police to take time out of their day to come by my house for nothing.

The issue was that I was sick and tired of talking to this particular person. So I’d simply stopped answering the phone.

I really thought nothing of it. I’ve got shit to do, I’ve been outside shoveling snow for the past week or so with my neighbors.

I’ve got other stuff to do as well and I have no desire to be pissed off or bummed out by some overly dramatic nonproductive conversation with this person. Who the fuck does this bitch think she is, calling the cops?

For fucks sake! I have a family that is checking in with me every day. Sometimes I don’t answer them either. It depends on what I’m doing. Maybe I’ll get back to them in a day or two.

This person isn’t even MY friend. She’s a friend of my deceased partner! There is little to no connection between us.

I’m more likely to answer calls from my family because they don’t cause me an hour or two of emotional pain when they call. They don’t rehash the same shit from their unresolved trauma over and over again. They don’t talk over me. They don’t tell me how to live my life. But this “friend” does all of the above.

This person keeps trying to force me into grieving my loss like she thinks I should. Then to top it off, as if she owns me, she calls the cops to enforce her will on me. The cops ask me to call her. What are we in? Kindergarten?

Take a fucking hint lady, I was only marginally interested in continuing a relationship with you, out of respect for my partner. But NOW oh hell no! I’ll be cutting all ties.

I’m really sick and tired of having to remind people that I am a 60+ year old adult male and am more than capable of taking care of myself.  I’ve been doing it for decades.

To any of you that may think otherwise, or that I need a mother, or a parent, or a controller…

BACK OFF!

LEAVE ME IN PEACE. I’LL GRIEVE, IN MY OWN WAY, IN MY OWN TIME!

HERE’S SOMETHING ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW,  

I’LL THRIVE IN MY NEW LIFE!

Posted on

Poor Jesse!

Let me explain. Jesse knows all the dirty words, long before he came to live with us he associated all of those dirty words with being punished.

I’ve been trying to control my language around him because even saying “Shit” can cause him to get nervous.

One of my pet peeves is technology arbitrarily claiming that configuration has changed when in fact I’ve made no changes to the configuration. Apple I’m looking at YOU!

Microsoft of course has been doing this kind of thing for years. That’s one reason that I don’t use Microsoft in my daily computing.

It looks like Apple is getting more like Microsoft every day. Eventually, they’ll equal or surpass Microsoft in annoyance factor and spawn a whole new computer or technology industry. One where user convenience, customer service, and reliability are the top concerns of the company.

Sadly that day is not today.

Microsoft and Apple are like two political candidates. You are faced with shitty choices so you choose the least shitty choice and hope it works for you

This rant started because I wanted to have lunch. When I have lunch, I usually watch an episode of Archer, or Rick & Morty. So, as I’ve done for the last year I grabbed the Apple TV Remote, pushed the button to wake up the Apple TV and waited for the monitor to clunk on.

Everything looked normal. I clicked on TV Shows and got a black screen. It was working last night. I was watching another TV show I’d purchased. I’d shut things down last night when I went to bed and again noticed nothing amiss.

I restarted the Apple TV. Still got a black screen when I asked for TV shows, but the Movies I’d purchased displayed properly.

Wondering if the problem was on the Apple side, I picked up my phone. I’ve used my phone to watch shows before. This time nothing worked. I was apparently logged into the right stuff but my phone said I had no purchases. And no subscriptions. That’s not correct, so I restarted my phone too.

Then my watch claims there’s something going on with passwords. This was my first and only clue about what might have been going on.

Needless to say my frustration level has been steadily rising during all this idiocy. All I wanted to do was watch a TV show while I ate lunch. I didn’t want to deal with some long drawn out technology troubleshooting situation.

As my frustration rose so did the level of swearing. All of which freaked Jesse out.

Once I finally figured out that the phone, and the AppleTV were effectively lying to me. Something was totally wrong with the credentials. Signing out  took forever. Much more swearing and a colorful vocabulary ensued.

The problem is that I haven’t touched logins or passwords for months. There’s no reason for these devices to believe there’s been a change, and none of the other devices in the house appear to have been affected. Although I should probably test all the HomePods just to be sure.

Jesse, disappeared. While waiting for all the logins to do their thing, I noticed he was gone.

He was hiding out in his room/cage.

I’d lost my temper. He thought I was mad at him. I wasn’t but he doesn’t understand the difference.

The poor puppy!

This is going to cost me plenty of cuddles and treats.

I honestly don’t know what is going on with Apple lately. But I’ve noticed that the software isn’t as elegant as it once was. I’m not at all thrilled with the System Settings on my Mac. Was there really an overwhelming need to change systems settings? Or was this all driven by someone who needed to keep their job and redesigned settings for no other reason? There are other aspects of the system(s) that are clunky and frankly confusing.

Posted on

The Blizzard may finally be over!

IMG 2635Woke up to another foot or two of snow this morning.

Great!

That being said, it looks like the storm fronts are breaking up and we’ve got some sun breaking through the clouds. It’s doubtful that the sun will help much today because the temps will remain in the upper 20s.

Seeing the sun gives one hope that warmer temps are on their way for at least 5 days. Then there’s the possibility of more snow on Sunday and Monday. Fingers crossed it’s just a dusting.

I’ve got some really great neighbors. After clearing the back decks and stairs for Jesse, I went out front and found my neighbors using their snow blowers to help clear a large portion of the driveway. I cleared the front deck and did the detail work that can’t be done with a snow blower.

IMG 2631My driveway is almost wide enough for me to get my car out of the garage. I’ve got to do more shovel work to widen it some more and open the driveway entrance up a bit to allow for more maneuvering to back out, or back into the garage. Right now there’s just not enough width to allow making the turn.

There are a couple of dogs who’ve been roaming around the neighborhood for the past day or two. They look healthy, have collars, but no tags to allow us to contact their owners. They’re friendly but I don’t recognize them as “Locals”. It’s likely that they simply walked over their fence on top of the snow. Jesse is also very close to figuring out that he could get over the fence if he really wanted to.

Thankfully he’s more interested in being with me, than roaming the neighborhood.

These dogs may be wondering where their people are. No-one has been able to get into town for about five days. It’s possible that the the owners of these dogs have been kept off the mountain by the storm. If these boys start looking hungry, I’ll give them some of Jesse’s food reserve so they don’t starve waiting for their “parents” to come home.

IMG 2638The winds are dying down so it’s not quite as nasty to be out and about.

There’s an agreeable symmetry to this storm.

In 1992 the other half and I were planning the move into this house. It was mid March and had been warm and sunny for two weeks. The roads were clear and there was no snow to be seen. The night before the move, it snowed… A LOT! We ended up moving into this place using sleds. The local kids were more than willing to rent us their sleds for 10 bucks and the more entrepreneurial of those kids even provided the horse power to drag the sleds full of our meager household goods across the snow for us. At additional cost, of course!

It was totally worth putting cash in those kids hands.

They’re long gone now, having left to start their own families but their faces lighting up as we handed them $20s for their work was well worth it. Their Fathers and Mothers smiling about the industriousness of their children was worth it too. The neighbors also knew we were stand up folks and welcomed us. We’d fed their children while they worked and made sure they took rest breaks and were safe.

Now that the other half is gone, somehow a snowstorm seems appropriate. This is my last Winter in my little mountain town.

There’s still much to do, and the logistics of moving are daunting. But I’m convinced that leaving is probably the right thing to do. There are too many ghosts and memories here. Most of them happy, some of them sad, but the life I had is over.

It’s time to move on, hopefully a sweet couple who’s just starting out, will buy this place. It’s a good place, in a good town. Maybe whoever buys the place can make make a lifetime of cherished memories here as we did.

IMG 2629I’ll miss this place I’ve called home for 30 some odd years, of that, there’s no doubt. I’m sure I’ll cry the last time I drive away.

I’ll have to make time to appreciate this last spring here at this place, my home. I’ll also have to remember to take in the spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

There’s always been something magical about the light here. I’ll miss that too.

The road ahead beckons.