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Today would have been my grandma’s 99th birthday. It’s been nine months since she went to her rest and reward, so I wanted to share some “then” and “now” photos in her honor.
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I forgot to include this oddity in my “weird things” post a couple of weeks ago:
Because I ordinarily buy them one shoe at a time, don’t you? Ahem.
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The world has a new blogger, and it needed this one. You must click over and read. Right. Now. And then add her to your blogroll. I mean it. Right. Now.
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Me and technology are not good friends. The other day I tried to get on Finale to input music, and my MIDI interface went dead mid-phrase. The computer began beeping and hollering about how there was a problem with the software, or the cord, or the drivers, or some such nonsense. The keyboard is twenty-five years old, so the fact that we ever got it to work is sort of miraculous. Nonetheless, when I need my keyboard to work, I need it to work! I restarted Finale. I unplugged it and replugged it. I shut down the computer and restarted it. But nothing I did convinced that keyboard it needed to talk to my computer. I did Finale input manually for two days. And then, on a whim, I tried again–and it worked.
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Then, of course, there’s the deal with the printer. Let me back up. I had a Canon inkjet printer-scanner I adored. But it sort of became a catch-all surface. And one day it “caught” the iPad cord. Which was no big deal until Christian tried to print something, and the feed mechanism grabbed the end of the iPad cord and pulled it into the guts of the printer. The tech guys eventually got the cord out, but the printer was useless. (Incidentally, the blame for this incident does not rest with me, but with my husband. I feel compelled to share that, because I have so many problems with technology that are my own fault, I need to make it clear when it WASN’T my fault.)
So now we have a Brother printer-scanner. It is our first laser printer. It began wagging its finger at me to change the toner cartridge over a month ago, every time I start up the computer or turn the printer on. There hadn’t been any falloff in the print quality, but I bought a replacement cartridge from the recycled ink store so I would have it on hand when the print did fail.
And then, one day IN THE MIDDLE OF A PRINT JOB, the printer simply stopped printing and flashed, “CHANGE THAT CARTRIDGE RIGHT NOW WOMAN, I AM NOT PRINTING ONE MORE PAGE UNTIL YOU DO.” Only IT WAS STILL PRINTING JUST FINE! I tried shutting it off and on, turning the computer on and off–nothing would convince this printer that it was capable of printing another page until I changed that %^&**( cartridge that DIDN’T NEED CHANGING.
At last I called the Ink Factory, and was told that Brother sets its printers BY THE NUMBER OF PAGES. Now, how stupid is that? Part of my “consume less and protect the earth” campaign involves printing everything at low quality on the back side of used paper in order to use less of both. I always have. The only exception is writing submissions. So my mother bear growl is in full force. The idea that these technology companies can screw us over like this to ratchet up their bottom line is offensive. They’re undercutting attempts at conservation. Grrr!
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Speaking of technology, I lost my cell phone. And apparently I’m being unreasonable to want a dumb phone without a monthly plan, i.e. an emergency only cell phone. When we went to replace my phone, Virgin Mobile informed us that they no longer have a prepaid plan. I’ve been grandfathered in for a while, so they honored it as long as I kept my phone, but no longer. Well, fine. We switched over to TracPhone, because we had to. And if you’re one of the privileged few who had my cell #, just lose it, because it’s different now.
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As long as we’re talking about phones, I’m also apparently the only person in the universe who still knows phone numbers. My first major boyfriend wanted to program my # into his house phone–this was back in the 1990s. I got irritated because I thought there were certain phone numbers you just needed to know by heart, and your girlfriend’s was one of them.
These days, no one knows phone numbers, because everybody puts them in their phones. And I gnash my teeth and think, “What happens when something happens to your phone and you need to get in touch with someone? Huh? Huh?” But then it occurs to me that the kind of apocalypse that would take down a cell network would probably negate anyone needing to get in touch with anyone else, anyway.
Still, I remember phone numbers. A lot of phone numbers. I look at it as a mental exercise.
Well, I’ve been wordy and snarky today. Better get my two middle children ready for summer school!
Kathleen M. Basi 
Thanks friend!
Yes, yes and yes. I agree wholeheartedly with the whole technology rant. We were just “forced” to graduate to smartphones this year, before that we had flip phones too…the techs at the phone store laughed. They didn’t realize people actually still used those things. We lost our grandfathered plan too. I figured we would have to do it eventually, just to keep ahead of the technology curve before my kids get there. And I still have many phone numbers in my head. I tend to use them as security code numbers now! The whole printer ink cartridge fiasco, what is up with that??!! What if you print pages that use very little ink? There has got to be a way to fix that setting.
Love the 1974 pic, I was born that year too and I think my mom had those same curtains in our house.
As for the printer, I just know the next time I buy a printer I’m going to be asking the guy at the recycled ink place if there’s anyone who DOESN’T do that.
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 4:08 PM, So much to say, so little time wrote:
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