frustration

Trouble – Day 1081

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Trouble – Photo: L. Weikel

Trouble

Look at the photo above. Brutus is flirting with disaster. And Cletus is providing an almost irresistible target. No matter which way you look at it, trouble seems to be the most probable outcome.

While the expression on Brutus’s face is kind of cute, the energy of this photo sort of captures how I’m feeling at the moment. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it almost physically painful to even look at headlines.

With all the harbingers of a truly horrific downfall of our country beating us over the head, day after day, I am gobsmacked that a handful of people are essentially holding us back from taking a huge leap forward in reclaiming our status as an enlightened country. It literally hurts my heart to contemplate how selfish and bought these so-called representatives (Senators) are to be refusing to allow progressive ideals even the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives.

Honestly, I find myself without words and feeling despair in my heart.

Anyone Else?

It just feels like we’ve been through so much – and there’s no respite, no blue sky. We never get the chance to see our ideas and ideals implemented. We never get to see what exercising compassion at the root of our country’s actions would yield.

And all the while, the rich not only get richer – they get obscenely richer. And two people who profess to be part of the party that wants to implement change for the vast majority of our country – just two – have the power to derail what millions of people voted for last year.

There’s no point in me even writing about any of this. I know. And that simple fact takes my breath away.

That Light

I don’t know why I’m compelled to write from such a dismal place this evening. Thank goodness I’ve had puppies to focus upon lately, I guess. Because Spartacus’s sudden death knocked the wind out of me. And the utter intransigence we’re witnessing in Washington D.C. right now is having a similar effect. It’s sucking the hope right out of my sails.

The light I think so many of us felt last November is turning out to be, in all seriousness, the headlight of an oncoming bullet train that’s going to demolish the United States – at least the U.S. we were raised to believe we were.

I feel powerless to stop it and – damn, I have to say – I loathe feeling powerless.

Something needs to change. The system as it exists now has been so corrupted by dark money (and light money – and money of every shade in between) that the country we thought we had no longer exists. And if hope is extinguished in most of us?

Trouble will have found its home.

Beauty in spite of it all – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-30)

Rhythm – Day 1056

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Satisfied Sunset 2 Oct 2021 – Photo: L. Weikel

Found a Rhythm

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I only have 55 posts left to write in my 1111 Devotion, but lately it’s been feeling harder and harder to think of things to write about. Again. I ran into this feeling often during the days, weeks, and months when I was first immersing myself in this Act of Power, as I like to refer to it. But then it seemed like I found a rhythm. I developed a trust in my process that became a way of life.

I’m not sure why I’ve been struggling lately.

Swimming Upstream

Some nights it just feels like I’m swimming upstream in a river that’s flowing with the adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Yeah, sure; that’s a tidy intention. But I’m not engaging in this every night to simply be a purveyor of bromides. Nevertheless, I try to bear in mind that my posts are read first thing in the morning by some of you. I try to remain cognizant of setting a tone for your day.

But then you get treated to a barrage of frustration like the one that poured out of me the other night. I’d apologize for my rant, but I’m passionate about where we’re headed as a country. I’m freaked out that nothing substantive has been done to bring accountability to the myriad crises and abuses we’ve watched unfold in plain sight over the past several years.

And I’m especially appalled that investigation into the insurrection has, so far at least, yielded a dearth of information about and zero accountability for anyone who was actually a ringleader of that debacle and near-coup. And the sentences meted out for the truly egregious behavior of the people egged on by those in power seem paltry and pathetic. Mere slaps on the wrist when you re-watch what we all witnessed unfold in real time.

“My Bad”

So I must take responsibility. The spirit is willing but the flesh (as obviously expressed by my fingers tip-tapping on the keyboard) is weak.

I’m genuinely worried about the state of our country. And I’m especially troubled by how a failure to hold the big names accountable is going to end up trashing the foundational pillars of our democracy.

I’m relieved we’ve been given a reprieve (at least somewhat) from the constant bombardment of outlandish lies. But sadly, it’s not enough.

We need to get involved; we need to speak up. Too often – and too much like the ‘silent majority’ baloney of 40 years ago – we regular people who’ve bought into the fundamental principles of our country (such as no one being above the law, the existence of an impartial judicial system, majority rule – with minority given some stop-gap measures but not so powerful that they hijack the system – to name a few) are being told to sit down and shut up.

I for one am not inclined to do so. And I hope neither are you.

(T-55)

Stuck in Waiting – Day 1018

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Cletus – Right foreleg backwards – Photo: L. Weikel

Stuck in Waiting

I’ve been feeling a weird vibe over the past few days. It’s been most noticeable when I sit down to write my nightly post. The best way I can describe it is that I feel like I’m stuck in waiting.

I can’t even begin to describe what I’m waiting for, which in some sense makes this feeling even weirder. If you were a fly on the wall in my living room (I’d probably go after you with a swatter) – but besides that lamentable aggression, you’d see me on the prowl. I’m looking for something that feels worthy of sharing with you and I keep coming up empty-handed.

Current Events

Let’s face it; aren’t most of us just fed up to here with the world? It’s a mess on so many levels. And for the most part, unless we’re health care professionals or active-duty military people, we probably can’t actually do a lot to pro-actively tackle the problems. Of course I’m exaggerating. There are actually lots of other people doing ‘front-line’ work addressing the societal woes that go beyond ‘just’ the delta variant or Afghanistan. Firefighters. Teachers.

Pretty much everywhere we are, we’re doing our best to keep ourselves together and life progressing. I’m reminded by circumstances I see in friends and family how nearly impossible it is to secure mental health support. How tragic in these monumentally stressful times.

Neither Oracles Nor Astrology

Nothing I read or look at right now feels like it lends itself to a post. To be honest, I feel like this is the calm before the storm. But I’m also not wanting to try to pin anything down right now. It’s hard to describe, but the best I can say is that nothing feels like it wants to be defined or addressed in this moment. Everything’s in flux. Another word might be chaos, but that feels a little too strong. Chaos could be coming; but right now, we’re just sort of stewing.

Most of us are hoping for the best. Whatever that may be…

Cletus – left foreleg backwards – Photo: L. Weikel

A Cletus Puzzle

So I’ll leave you with these two photos of Cletus. They were taken within five minutes or so of each other. In one, his right foreleg and paw are splayed out backwards, behind him, in what appears to be an extremely unnatural position. In the other, his left foreleg and paw are extended in a similar extremely vulnerable position.

I may have written about this before as it freaks me out when he does it. I suspect he slept like this in the womb, shifting and tucking his little legs to make room for his kitten siblings.

Nevertheless, he’s such a weird cat. And that’s the thing I find most pleasing to write about tonight.

(T-93)

Frustration – Day 869

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Train Wreck – aka – Dud of an Aunt Grace’s Cake – Photo: L. Weikel

Frustration

I baked a cake today and I’m brimming with frustration. For the life of me, I don’t know why it turned into this monstrosity resembling a chocolate milk-colored lava flow slowly inundating a toppled pile of walnuts.

I know why it looks like a toppled pile of walnuts, though. Because each layer of the cake resisted removal from its pan, that’s why. One layer left a strip of itself along the edge in the pan. I retrieved it. But did it want to rehabilitate itself back into the society of the rest of the cake? No, it did not.

Another layer left a chunk of its very center in the pan. It was fully cooked. Don’t fall for that play for sympathy. You know: “Oh, I wasn’t ready to come out of the oven yet! It wasn’t time for my debut and she forced me on stage without reading me my lines!”

No. That’s baloney. It was time.

And then there was the third layer. Or I should say the first layer, for it was the one I placed at the bottom, giving it the responsibility of being the foundation upon which the integrity of the entire confection rested. Well, that trust was certainly misplaced. While it could be noted that this particular layer perhaps did not leave as much of itself in the pan initially, it more than failed to meet its pathetic attempt at mediocrity by just leaning over and succumbing to the weight of its self-loathing.

Then Came the Icing

Was it something in the air? Was it a sign from above that it’s time to dramatically cut back on the sugar intake, Lisa?

I don’t know what it was, but to add insult to injury, the icing was simply a mess. It never got firm. It’s not firm now and it’s been in the refrigerator since late this afternoon. And while the icing tastes ok…it is not the near mouth-gasm I know this recipe is capable of creating.

Something’s off about it and – just as I have no clue what the hell happened to the cake, I am equally flummoxed by the implosion of the icing.

With respect to integrity of the ingredients, there is the possibility that this effort went to hell in a hand-basket because I allowed the butter, which I’d placed on top of the stove to soften – just two simple sticks of butter still wrapped in their paper cloaks, hanging out on the oven while it warmed up – to sort of melt.

In my defense, I got sidetracked by a visitor – and forgot what I was doing, as we chatted outside in the sunshine while maintaining appropriate social distancing. Nevertheless, Karl made a valiant attempt to salvage the effort by sort of scooping them up onto a plate. They struggled to maintain their structural integrity, but only superficially succeeded. I do think the partial melting may have contributed to the creation of lava.

Other Variables

Beyond these slight snafus, other variables did come into play. I attempted to use my mother-in-law’s vintage standing mixer from the ‘50s. Mind you, I’ve never used one of these ever in my life – always having been a hand-held mixer girl up to this point.

Well, because I burned out my hand-held over Christmas and had to buy a crappy 3 speed whose fastest speed barely musters enough power to beat an egg, I thought I’d give the standing mixer a try. The indicator on the side of the contraption hinted at lightning speeds achievable. I dreamed of whipping all the ingredients into a quivering frenzy.

Dormeyer Standing Mixer – Photo: L. Weikel

Yeah, well, I guess it worked. Technically at least, I guess it did what stand-ups do? But I did not have the control I craved (and have always wielded) while using a hand-held. Call me crazy, but it felt like a variable that may have influenced the final outcome. It just didn’t feel…right.

Another factor – at least in the failed creation of the layers of walnut torte – was a potential aging or impotence factor in the baking powder I used. Frankly, I sense that blaming the baking powder is less than optimum and definitely doubtful – although my recent attempt to make Carol’s Chocolate Cake resulted in a density to the cake that also was unnerving. Where oh where was the light and airy fluffiness of my cakes? Am I losing my touch?

A Bummer

I just don’t know. But having one’s ‘face fixed’ for exquisite confections only to have them turn out not only to look like natural disasters but also taste just ‘OK’ – when they should, by all rights, send one’s mouth and senses into ecstatic overload – is, in a word, inauspicious – especially if considered to be a harbinger of the year to come. In another word:  a BUMMER.

Finally, as the accompanying photo shows, I am capable of baking this cake like a champ. Not this year, though. Nope. <<sigh>>  Maybe next time.

A Better Rendition of Aunt Grace’s Cake – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-242)

Who Am I Kidding – Day 767

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Waxing Crescent Moon – Photo: L. Weikel

Wow, was that snowfall dense. We actually ended up getting only about 8” of accumulation, but I venture to guess it would’ve risen to much greater heights had it been the light fluffy stuff. I sure hope the 44” they got along the southern tier of New York wasn’t as thick and heavy as ours was. I shudder to think how I would feel after shoveling that. Oh who am I kidding? I wouldn’t be shoveling if that were the case. Screw it; I’d wait for a thaw.

That said, Karl probably wouldn’t ‘wait for a thaw.’ Which means I wouldn’t either. Why? Because I’m always striving to be his partner. To pitch in and do things together. No, I may not have the upper body strength he does. But I would do my best to hold my own and do what I could.

Sometimes I get tired of always feeling like I have to keep up or do my part. But I guess that keeps me young. Or does that make me immature? Good question. Big difference.

Frustration

This week has been consistent in its inconsistency and unexpected challenges. (And I struggled there for a moment to recall just what day of the week it is. I swear, it feels like we’ve lived a month since Monday.)

A long time ago, in what feels like another lifetime, I was determined to get some serious baking done during the forecasted nor’easter. Kiffels were on the agenda, as were both some peanut butter cookies and oatmeal cookies just to round things out. Chocolate chippers with walnuts were clamoring for creation, but I was realistic enough within myself to know I wasn’t even going to entertain their plea – at least not in the short term. No; if I got the kiffel dough started (and in the refrigerator) and perhaps those other two kinds of cookies baked, I’d be happy.

I decided to start with baking a batch of peanut butter cookies. I knew I’d have to refrigerate the kiffel dough for eight hours, so my thinking was that it would be easier to exercise patience if there were other fresh baked goodies with which to indulge our palettes.

Sound reasoning. But I wasn’t expecting my hand held mixer to crap out on me. And it wasn’t a typical ‘burn out the motor’ type of thing, which I’m pretty sure I did last year. No. This time, I’d be in the midst of creaming the butter and sugar, or slowly adding the dry ingredients, and the beaters would automatically eject into the batter.

WHAT?

The first time it happened, I assumed I’d accidentally pressed on the speed adjustment dial and ejected the beaters. So I was ever so careful not to do that again. Yeah. Turns out that wasn’t the case. No, the beaters just decided they weren’t going to do any heavy lifting anymore. As soon as the batter became even slightly thick, they jumped ship in unison. The language this elicited from me would’ve done a sailor proud.

Foiled

So my kiffels are yet to be baked. Hell, the dough hasn’t even made it to the fridge yet (because it doesn’t exist – yet). Instead, after helping out with shoveling, I went on a quest for a mixer.

What a fool’s errand. And in the middle of a pandemic.  Yet I stayed away from people. I wore my mask. And I drenched my hands with sanitizer after each fruitless effort.

See, the thing is, mixers aren’t made the way they used to be. Apparently they’re only designed to last a year or two, which absolutely incenses me. Planned obsolescence is…well, a whole other topic’s worth of rant.

I did end up scoring a basic mixer that I hope will last longer than four birthday cakes, and a single Christmas’s worth of baked goods. I’m not holding out a lot of hope. But at least I should be back on track tomorrow.

* I did succeed in mixing the peanut butter cookie batter by hand. Not something I wanted to repeat. But at least they’re yummy and providing sustenance – not only for the quest but also for the shoveling. I know I’m going to pay for that tomorrow.

Peanut Butter Cookies – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-344)

Shouting Into the Wind – Day 672

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Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

Shouting Into the Wind

I’ve had a frustrating couple of days, but today was by far the worst one yet. I’m not ‘challenging worse,’ as they say (which I am loathe to do), just comparing today’s struggles with the challenges of Friday and Saturday. Pretty much everything I tried to accomplish today felt like I was shouting into the wind.

Nothing seemed to get anywhere. I sent emails and it felt like they went into black holes. And I’m not in any way offering commentary on the recipients of my emails! I frankly doubt whether the emails were ever received.

You’ve heard me complain before about the frustrating lack of speed photos travel when I send them from my iPhone to my computer. It happens randomly, so the best way to try to thwart the issue is by being disciplined. If I think I may want to use it later, I try to remember to send myself – right away – photos I’ve taken during the day. Well, today even emails I was sending to myself seemed to be taking their good ol’ time arriving in my inbox.

And some of them still haven’t arrived. Remember, these are emails I sent to myself. While that’s bad enough, the worst part is that I wouldn’t even know if other people aren’t receiving my emails. That’s frustrating.

My Pick Today

Just as I was writing the paragraph above, I realized that all of this makes sense. I can try to cross things off my list, but when I’m thwarted by silly or little things that I can’t control that literally keep me from taking next steps, it’s wise to take a step back and just breathe.

I chose Salmon2 today – meaning there was a blank card on the bottom of the deck when I chose Salmon as my main card. We interpret that to mean the top card chosen is going to give us a double dose of its medicine or we should pay particular attention to the lessons it’s here to teach us.

As you can imagine, and as I’ve described before, Salmon is all about returning to the place of our creation. An excerpt from Medicine Cards*, by Jamie Sams and David Carson, states:

“Salmon medicine honors every encounter in life as a gathering of wisdom. It teaches that even when the flow of life seems to push you back, you can tap into the hidden resources of your human spirit and personal inner knowing.”

Well, I definitely felt like I was being pushed back in a variety of ways today. Just running into unexpected obstacles, making it impossible for me to complete the tasks I’d written in my ‘to-do’ list.

It’s probably a blessing I’m being reminded now that I chose Salmon2 today. My frustration eases when I recall Salmon’s message. Funny how I forgot.

“The proper use of inner knowing comes when you flow with your authentic feelings, embracing all the experiences you encounter in life as learning lessons rather than hardships. Salmon teaches you to see every bend in the river as a new adventure, with a lesson you need to learn in order to grow.”

New Moon Coming

Later this week (Thursday) the moon will ‘go dark’ as a new moon. It might be a good idea for all of us to evaluate how we’re approaching this fall season of 2020 and ask ourselves if we want to plant some new seeds, some fresh intentions regarding what we want to create in our lives.

I know I’ll be starting something new. Perhaps you’ll join me. Stay tuned.

*affiliate link

(T-439)

Just Weird – Day 635

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Opposite of Clarity – Photo: L. Weikel

Just Weird

Am I the only one? I’m having a really hard time focusing. The day today felt surreal; I was never really sure what time it was. Perhaps because the skies grew so dark and foreboding so early in the afternoon, everything felt skewed and off. And normally, I love a good thunderstorm. But the one that struck tonight was in keeping with an entire week that was just weird.

I feel restless and unsettled. Karl and I had a misunderstanding almost first thing this morning that left us screaming in each other’s faces. It was shocking. And utterly hilarious (in retrospect). Sort of. But not really. It was just weird.

I can’t even put my finger on the word that would accurately characterize what exactly happened this morning. Argument isn’t the word – there was no issue upon which we were disagreeing. Hence disagreement, too, fails the test. Misunderstanding is probably the closest I’m going to get.

Opposite of Speaking in Tongues

Having been raised Catholic, studying the bible was not a foundational activity in my youth. That said, I am familiar with the concept of ‘speaking in tongues,’ and have always understood it to mean that when a person in biblical times spoke in tongues, no matter what their background, whoever was listening to the speaker heard the message being spoken in the listener’s native language.

Conceptually, that possibility always appealed to me. I could imagine it happening; pretty easily, in fact. Although I had to wonder how anyone would know it was happening. I figured the only way they’d realize it was happening would be by realizing they were unable to communicate with each other.

So I found it puzzling on the one or two occasions I saw what I guess were considered to be people speaking in tongues that no one could understand the gobbledygook that was issuing from their lips.

That’s not my point here, although I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar antithetical experience.

My point is that Karl’s and my morning today began with a ‘conversation’ in which we were ostensibly speaking to each other but not communicating a damn thing. It was as if we were speaking in anti-tongues. Or talking under water. No matter how hard we tried, the words just weren’t coming out right. Or maybe they weren’t being heard correctly.

The frustration we both felt resulted in us literally screaming in each other’s faces. It was awful and unsettling and…incendiary. It was profoundly uncharacteristic of both our personalities and our relationship.

It was also just plain weird.

Just Fed Up

After each storming off to lick our wounded egos and reflect upon our justified outrage, it took us about half an hour of fits and starts at reconciliation to come to the conclusion that our explosions toward each other stemmed from our mutual frustration over…everything.

Everything ‘out there’ that we have absolutely no control over. It’s almost as if no one speaks the same language anymore. Everyone speaks their own personal dialect and it seems as if there’s no desire or attempt to understand the perspective or feelings of others anymore.

Karl had been trying to tell me where he’d found himself detoured due to flash flooding. I was trying to visualize where he was talking about. Neither one of us were approaching the scenario from a perspective that permitted communication of anything meaningful. Even this attempt to describe the utter banality of our inability to understand each other feels like a failure.

But I’m trying to capture it because somehow that feels like the point. It feels like what I imagine a lot of us are feeling with respect to a whole range of issues from the slightest (like ours) to the most consequential we can imagine.

We’re totally fine. But I have to say: it was just weird.

Flooding – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-476)

Supreme Frustration – Day 379

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Supreme Frustration

No photos tonight – at least not of what I both wanted and intended to post.

Yesterday, after taking a walk that started in the late afternoon glow of the setting sun but ended in the early evening darkness that happens in November, Karl and I started up the walkway to our kitchen door. I was following Karl and was a few paces behind him. I saw Spartacus lunge toward our left, toward our small barn, which he sometimes does when we return home after a walk. It’s not uncommon for deer to congregate on our lawn, back by the barn. Usually, Karl unsnaps Spart’s harness as we enter our driveway, and he’ll take off toward the deer, feeling all manly as he chases away those very daunting four leggeds.

I heard a thump and, as I said, could see Spartacus try to bolt, yet got jerked by the leash. I presumed he’d seen a couple deer.

Suddenly I heard Karl exclaim, “No! Spartacus!” as the leash made the jagged sound it makes when trying to retract the lead. “It’s dead! Get away!”

A Shock On the Lawn

I heard all of this in the flash of the couple seconds it took me to catch up to them. I immediately saw the body laying underneath the bird feeders. It was shocking. The body of an animal larger than our largest cat was laying dead on our lawn.

Karl, meanwhile, was gathering up Spartacus and Sheila and calling them to go into kitchen. Sheila, being mostly blind and predominantly deaf, was oblivious. Spartacus, not unusually, was intrigued. He’s usually pretty good at listening to us, especially when there’s a sharp edge to our voices, so he was up on the porch, but was clearly conflicted.

I was appalled. My mind raced. What could have happened to this animal?! What could it have possibly eaten that would have poisoned it – and so close to our porch?! Karl and I were both upset that there was a death on our lawn.

Playing ‘Possum

And then it hit me. “Duh, Karl,” I exclaimed. “It’s a ‘possum! It’s playing dead!”

“No,” Karl immediately replied. “Look at it! Its mouth is hanging open and it looks bloated. It’s clearly dead!”

“But that’s what they do,” I began, handing him Sheila’s leash, which I’d been holding. She was still attached to it, but was in the process of walking up the steps onto the porch. “Here – would you take her?” I urged, trying to shove her leash into his hand. “I want to get a picture of it! I bet it’ll run away as soon as we go inside.”

We fumbled around passing the leash; I was hurrying, trying to pull my phone out of my pocket so I could document our discovery. Karl herded the pups into the kitchen and was simultaneously trying to keep Cletus, the ornery black and white cat of ours, from leaping through the doorway and off the porch, right onto the opossum.

He would not have it. He bounded out.

I shrieked, knowing instinctively that the opossum was still alive – and they can be ferocious. But the cat stayed on the porch, probably having had a run-in with this critter before.

Say Cheese!

I trained my iPhone toward the dead body, its razor-sharp pointy teeth clearly visible, it’s mouth unpleasantly slack-jawed and hanging open. Suddenly, it sat up, looked right into my eyes, and just stood there. I shrieked involuntarily. Not that I was afraid of it, but it took me completely by surprise – even though I’d known it was still alive!

I yelped to get Karl’s attention.

The animal was perfectly healthy. I then yelled again, hoping to scare it so it would fall over and go into its second act, so I could take a closer photo of it.

Off Into the Darkness

Nope. No dice. It waddled off confidently, turning the corner around the porch toward the tall grass at the edge of our property. It disappeared into the darkness.

There’s a message here. And it’s part and parcel of the frustration I’m feeling right now.

Hopefully, I’ll have remedied the situation and I’ll both explain the message I received from the talented thespian and post a couple photos.

(T-732)

Mercury Rx or Lemon Laptop – Day Ten (T-1101)

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Mercury Retrograde? Or Just a Lemon Laptop?

Technically, Mercury is ‘retrograde’ now. It stationed and started appearing to move backwards from our perspective on Earth (obviously the planet is not literally moving backwards) on November 16thand will station and ‘go direct’ again on December 6th. When this happens, which it does three or four times per year, I think, the astrological lore is that many things associated with communication, electronics, appliances, etc., go on haywire, or are easily messed up somehow.

It is generally recommended that one not sign contracts during a period of Mercury retrograde, nor purchase electronics or other appliances – and it’s quite possible that wires of communications will get crossed and misunderstandings can abound. Phone calls drop more easily, emails don’t go through, etc., etc.

Interestingly enough, Sunday night, as I was putting the final touches on my post for that night, the screen on my Dell laptop started flickering. I immediately felt that queasy feeling. I’d seen this before. It stopped, and I completed what I was writing, hoping maybe I’d imagined that <<flicker>>.

I’d been down at the cabin and I had to get home so I could connect to the internet to publish the post. When I opened up my laptop here at home – oh my. The screen was fritzing into bands of gray pixels, then yellow band with jagged edges of orange and yellow, then bands of blue. (Even though it wasn’t, it looked like it should be making a crackly, hissy, zzzt zzzt noise.) The screen would revert back to showing the desktop, but little lightning like dots were randomly darting here and there and it was clear to me that it was rapidly losing its mind, so I frantically emailed myself the two posts I’d written that day. I was determined to neither lose those posts nor miss my deadline. The cursor literally froze in place after I hit <<send>>.

Lucky for me, we have another laptop and I was able to file that post before midnight.

On Monday, I called Dell’s premium support desk and ended up spending over five hours on the phone with them, during which they put both my computer and me through our paces. I was surprised when the technician took a snippy attitude with me; he acted a bit patronizing and assumed a couple of times that what I was reporting happening or seeing on the screen wasn’t so.

After five straight hours working on the machine together, he did something to it remotely that would take about two hours to complete. He said he would call me back to see if it successfully resolved the issue.

It did not. My tech did not call me back personally. Instead, “Joel” called me, saying my tech was on another call. Joel sounded chagrined that the procedure had not worked, put me on hold, and told me my tech would call me back at 11:00 a.m. EST Tuesday (yesterday) morning.

He did not.

In fact, NO ONE from Dell premium support (such as it is) called me yesterday. Naturally, I waited around for several hours. I need my laptop. (And no, I only have an 800 # for Dell – the techs call us; we don’t call the techs.) NOT ONE CALL. MY LAPTOP IS DEAD.

Oh, and did I mention this exact same thing happened in September? After spending hours and hours on the computer that time, they made me SEND IT IN to Dell (even though I have on-site service), and – a week later –  told me there was nothing wrong with it. They did a total reset of my computer (all my programs had to be reinstalled), but there was nothing wrong with it. Right.

And now it was happening again, two months later.

As I said, they did not have the courtesy to call me back yesterday after taking up over five hours of my time on Monday and failing to fix it.

Today, I was in a session all day. My phone was on silent, as I was with a client. There was ONE phone call from Dell: at 1:52 p.m. At 1:55 p.m., this guy had the unmitigated temerity to write me an email saying that he had “tried unsuccessfully to reach me” and since he didn’t get through to me, he was “archiving my service request.”

Can you see the steam coming out of my ears?

I thought I didn’t have anything to write about tonight. And I obviously didn’t have anything thoughtful to share.

But be aware of Mercury retrograde. Ha. Or crappy “premium” service by Dell.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve – and my apologies for being a crank.

I’m just grateful we have a MacBook Air in the house.