Lunch- A Character Study

I. The Price Thereof.



So this reading-books-on-the-iPhone thing isn't quite the modern miracle I thought it was. When I went to resume my read yesterday, I discovered that the download link had timed out, and could not be refreshed. No problem, though; I had a book-book with me and worked nicely through that, then mailed the actual .pdf of the book to myself so I could continue reading. 

Which I could, but with what my mother used to call "compications."  The whatever-the-hell-it-is .pdf reader app I installed (the phone not coming with one, Apple believing all things Adobe are of the devil) has no navigation tools, and, worse, does not use the browser to open the document but essentially treats it as a 338-page email message. Which means, if you get any other mail, you need to back out, and then back in and re-find your place.

Fortunately, I know the publisher:)  Who recommended an app called Stanza that might just do the trick.

Here's where Candlemark & Gleam exit the stage, and Apple & Hell enter, seventh stage.  Stanza is a free app.  Therefore, the iStore finds it absolutely necessary to have me update my credit card information in order to "buy" it.  Sixteen numbers known from memory- check. Expiry- check. Damn, what's that security code? Make a guess (it USED to be xxx before some asshacker at TJ Maxx caused my bank to reissue every one of their gorram cards). No good. Trundle out to wallet, pull card, oh yeah, the old court phone number started with that!, triumphantly put it in, and....

Your session has timed out. Please start again.

I do. Now I get a beatdown because I am accessing the Store from a "different computer." Le Crash, again it returns to haunt me. But one final verification later, it puts Stanza on my phonetop where I don't want it, and I clumsily create subfolders I also don't want before, finally, the display looks right (as it will remain until I pocket-rearrange it without even trying sometime later today.)

Jeebus. I can only imagine how hard this would be if it actually cost money.

So it's on there, at least. Now to find the version that works with it and see what this baby can actually do. And please- I'll get the check.

----

II. The Remains of the Lunch.

Eleanor and I have colonoscopy appointments for two weeks from tomorrow.  Not the real thing- the consults, and delivery of the pre-scope cocktails and, maybe, an explanation for why a doctor's office needs our feckin' social security numbers which the insurance company doesn't even use anymore.

----

See you tonight. Dinner at 8. Don't be late.

A Neighbory Kinda Update

Yaknow, considering we didn't, supposedly, get The OMGSnow? We got a fair amount of the stuff. It was a bear driving in it late yesterday, and getting in and out of our driveway last night until the plow guys came in the middle of the night (to give Eleanor and I something to listen to during our nightly insomnia). I finished things fairly early this afternoon, and when the animals went into full-blown mooch mode at close to 5, I resolved to get the hell out there and shovel some of it.

We've been trying to honor our civic duty and keep the sidewalk, and passable paths to our garage and front doors, relatively clear on a regular basis; we're not as anal as the neighbor who scrapes her whole driveway and corner-lot sidewalk down to bare pavement multiple times during a snowfall, but it's better than most of the jamoches around here who don't do anything.  I could hear the pissedoffedness of the tenants inside as I got most of the six or so inches that fell, mostly, yesterday, after the Big Storm had been pronounced a big bust. Sure enough, the total was kept down by a portion early on that was freezing rain, and THAT was a bear to get off the bottom.  Still, it's done, the sky was gorgeous and star-filled during the work, and there's nothing in the immediate forecast to make me feel it was all a waste.

----

Before that burst of energy, as I headed over to Tonawanda for some paperwork for a closing, I saw one of our neighbors in her car, stuck on the edge of HER driveway.  They don't have a service, and I'm not sure if they even have a snowblower. Their son was out, in his jam shorts and hoodie, trying to get the packed snow out from under the car. I wasn't dressed for a full-blown push session myself, but I did bring over some cardboard to try to give the wheels something to get purchase on.  Ultimately, AAA came and dragged her out, and the car's on the street now, since the job's still not done.

----

In between those, not knowing if Eleanor had procured wine (she had- hic), I stopped at our corner packie and settled on a compromise coupla liters of cheap chardonnay.  Another neighbor was in there, buying a similar quantity of vodka.

As they rang her out, she felt compelled to say, "That's a really good deal." "Yeah," I said to myself, "if you're trying to get on a list for a liver transplant."

I may not be cold turkey when it comes to alcohol, but I don't get anywhere near that kind of proof in that kind of quantity- and I don't get mean when I do drink.

----

Gotta be outta here at asscrack o'clock tomorrow, and Em thinks she's coming home for the weekend. She's gonna try to get a picture of a field out on the edge of campus, where a student snow-wrote the words "BAD WOLF" in 10-foot-high letters. She just said that's why she loves RIT so much- it's a place where people "get" that kind of thing.