Crunchy Thoughts

Recently, my poor old iPod has been showing distinctive signs of a funky memory loss, very akin to Alzheimer’s. The data was there but the iPod would forget it was and I could not get access to it until I connected it back to my computer and it would go, “Oh yeah!” which would last for about a day or so. Yesterday, Steven and I felt a need to get out of the house so we figured we’d just take my old iPod — it’s four years old next month — up to the Apple Store and have their Geniuses of Power look it over. Why not?

We’re about to head out of the house when I figured I’d better grab my MacBook Pro as well. The Geniuses of Power might want to see the Alzheimer’s in action and my iPod will need a computer it knows. As I closed the cover on the laptop I realized how dirty it had gotten. How embarrassing! I wasn’t sure how elitist the Genisus of Power would be and I did not want them to see the little spots where Renton had touched his nose all over the casing.

I grabbed one of Lydia’s baby wipes and carefully wiped over the cover, then wiped down the trackpad, keyboard, and even the screen. Perfect. The Geniuses won’t be able to have one ill thought about me. My computer’s almost two years old and nary a scratch, just a nosy cat.

We arrive at the Summit and load Miss Lydia into her stroller. It’s the first time she’s sat in the stroller without being in her carseat as well so we’re amused parents. Our baby’s growing up. Now that the stroller’s not as loaded down with carseat we have easy access to the storage net underneath the stroller seat. A perfect fit for the laptop while we stroll around the Apple Store.

In the store I have to make an appointment with the Geniuses of Power and the next available one is two hours later. We have time to kill. Lydia is enjoying being strolled around — she has excellent visibility without the confines of the carseat — and Steven and I need whatever exercise we can get.

After we came out of Barnes and Noble Lydia was getting fussy for her pacifier, woefully left behind in the car, and I wanted to look at a store that was across the street. We headed back to the car to conduct the laborious process of getting Lydia out of the stroller, into the carseat, and into the car, then get the stroller into the trunk. How did the parents cross the street? With much complication.

I was opening up one of Lydia’s new books we got from B&N while Steven was closing down the stroller. I heard Steven say, “I’m not doing something right,” and I looked over to see him struggling to close the stroller.

My brain caught up with what was going on and I stuttered out, “Steven! My laptop!”

He pulled it out and handed it to me with a joke about how he had tried to bend it.

Only it was bent. The entire computer had the slightest of bell curves to it. “Steven, it seriously is bent.” A small metal part of the casing above the lid release button was bowed out.

We got in the car and I took off the protective sleeve to open up my laptop. Just to make sure. I knew everything was fine though, really. As irritated as I was about the metal frame, it was superficial. I can handle it.

I didn’t see the metal dent on the lid, but Steven did. He says he knew then. I opened up the computer and in that second before the screen lit up, I could see there were two different colors of black on the screen — one normal, one more of a purply color in the shape of spilled ink. That’s when I knew. Then the screen lit up and we saw the damage in all its glory.

There was a long pause of silence in the car, then Steven and I both said a very bad word that we try not to say in the presence of Lydia.

My mind immediately shifted into denial/solution mode: shit happens, tax return forthcoming, hey we have an appointment already with the Geniuses of Power, new blog post, hey new laptop, at least it was the laptop we tried to fold in the stroller and not Lydia. Right? RIGHT??? *jazz hands*

Steven was in more guilt/I can’t believe I did that mode. If Lydia wasn’t with us, I think he would have been more than happy to sit down for drinks.

We slunk into the Apple Store near my appointed time. Despite the ‘Genius’ title I did not expect a miracle for my poor computer, only a confirmation of what I already knew. Oh how I wished my laptop was just dirty with wet cat nose spots. If they would think ill of me because of a dirty laptop, what will they think of this?

Decisions are much easier when you’re forced into them. So when the Genius of Power pointed us to a third party site where getting the LCD screen repaired is about as cheap as three of Renton’s vet visits I’m suddenly out of the corner I was forced into and I have a decision to make: fixed screen with dented-up outer casing (and worries that all that yoga could shorten life of hard drive and battery) or new laptop. Difference in price? $1,480.

No decision has been made yet, though I know myself quite well. I am no spendthrift, and knowing my propensity for the new and shiny makes this an even harder decision.

Until then, I will make do with either a computer from the technology graveyard downstairs or just stick it out with my half-blind Mac. After all, I’m typing this very post from it.

Yesterday at the Apple Store I did have them look at the iPod as well, now a minor issue in my life.

The iPod’s hard drive is failing because “there’s only so many times you can write to a drive.”

My computer was not needed to demonstrate the problem.

Now my computer IS the problem.

Yesterday I’m driving down 280 listening to a fellow on the radio gabble about James Madison when my cell phone rings at me. It’s the house. Steven had sent me an email earlier that day saying he wasn’t feeling too well so if the house was calling me he must be bad off. “Uh oh,” I thought.

This event is the latest in a series of rare and eventful illnesses we’ve dealt with in the last two weeks. Keep in mInd that Steven is NEVER sick. In the almost ten years we’ve been together he’s had to go to the doctor for an acute malady twice — a sinus infection and a case of epididymitis.

I’m a different story. Whenever we move — and as this blog can attest, we have done that quite a bit — the two people I have to find first is a hair stylist and a general practitioner. I always need both very soon.

So two weeks ago when Steven started talking about sinus pressure and his teeth aching I sent him straight along to my doctor, suspecting a sinus infection. Sure enough, he came back with that diagnosis and a pack of antibiotics. It’s an odd time in our house when Steven is the sick one and I feel great.

I did feel great. I was just dandy. I was too dandy to pay attention and I ate some malai kofta, which tasted fantastic. You couldn’t taste the walnuts at all.

Ahh, walnuts. Most nuts, and I’m allergic to every little one they make a skin test for, will just send me into a mild form of anaphylaxis. Walnuts, though. I HATE walnuts. I hate barfing, and walnuts make me do just that. I’m still leaning toward the cheese-and-cracker end of the menu. Just to be safe.

So yesterday when I arrive home to find Steven doubled up on the bathroom floor, it’s like my walnut episode from barely a week ago, just worse. After a day of pure misery, Steven was back at the doctor’s again today. Six plus years of no doctors’ visits whatsoever, and now he’s had to go twice in a week. No flu; just the worst stomach bug I’ve ever seen.

Steven is not the only one in my family that has paid his penance to the porcelain god: both my sister and her husband down in Auburn are going through the same thing Steven is. At least I’m well now to take care of Lydia. My sister and brother-in-law have a five-month-old between their very sick selves so my parents have gone down to help out with the young’un.

February is screwing us over this year. I’m ready for it to me March, springtime, and for Steven to be healthy as a horse and leave the sinus infections and other general illnesses to me. Sinus infections — it’s what I do.

But dear God, no more freakin’ walnuts.

And now, a most excellent follow-up to this post from earlier last year.

First point of order: I never made any sort of complaint to the homeowners’ association or whoever it is that we send our yearly check to. We are apparently not the only people who were irritated.

Second point of order: check out the underlined part! I danced in the living room as Steven read it out loud.

It is a happy day in our little bit of the world.

(click to get a bigger, more readable view)

Lydia, Hermione, and I were playing on the floor this morning when Hermione spied an open lap to cuddle up in: Lydia’s. She went for it, which got Lydia so excited she began scissor-kicking.

Hermione, now feeling rejected, came back into my arms to cuddle with me. I’m just thrilled that Hermione recognizes Lydia as having a lap and is therefore a bonifide person. Cats are pretty neat.

Steven’s dad, while holding Lydia and observing me working on Christmas cards: “You’re doing what I need to be doing.”

Steven, thinking his dad was talking to Lydia: “What, pooping?”

_________________________________

Overheard in J.C. Penney dressing room. These girls were hilarious, but this one was the only thing I wrote down.

“No, I like it, I want to wear it, I just don’t like the body that’s in it.”