Thursday, June 30, 2016

Poppy

Poppy has almost recovered from her hissy fit.  We now have an occasional growl when Parsifal tries to take liberties with her  -  i.e. getting too close.  But they were both on the bed with me this morning; Parsifal under the duvet and Poppy on top which is the normal order of things, each on opposite sides of me so that I can't move.

I had never really appreciated what a hissy fit was but last night I had it in spades and it wasn't nice.  I eventually reverted to crocodile tears which usually puts the guilts into misbehaving cats.  I have used it before but never with these two and it took a little while to work but it eventually did.

It is school holidays from today and GB1 is off to South Australia to take part in the Australian Schoolboy Sailing Championship.  He is the school's 'heavy weather' reserve and mid-winter on Lake Alexandrina should give him plenty of that.  Bless his heart  -  he is growing very like his grandfather who, for all his faults was a superb yachtsman.

There is something wrong with Poppy

I came home after spending time with D3 and SIL and both cats seemed fine but then, while I was checking my email  -   I still have Office outlook working  -  there was the sound of a spat.  I don't know who started it; I always seem to blame Parsifal but suspect that Poppy has a paw in it and maybe she starts the altercations.  Anyway, I *'waterbottled' both of them and told them both off in no uncertain terms and since then Poppy has been hissing and spitting at both of us whenever we go near her. She did come for her special treat food in the early evening but since then she has barricaded herself at the top of one of the cat towers and will not let either of us within about three metres.

The problem is that I can't check to see if she is hurt and do not want to frighten or upset her more by trying to confine her and check her over.  If she is still in the same frame of mind tomorrow I will need to throw a blanket over her, put her, un-harnessed into the kitty carriage and take her to the vet which will upset her even more.  Last time she was boarded out the owner of the kennels did mention that she could be very aggressive and I am wondering if this is a repeat of that aggression brought on by my anger at their fight.  I'll see how things are in the morning . . .

I had the week off from COTA because my one and only client  -  the one with the troubled computer  -  has not been back, apparently having her computer fixed but I am not holding my breath that she will appear again.  Next week we all get a holiday because the trains on the line past Visability will not be running and although there will be replacement buses Transperth has suggested allowing an extra 45 minutes travelling time.

I have sort of sorted Windows 10.  I don't like it and Office.com is still not working but when I turned on my Windows 7 computer to update the Contacts List on this computer  -  needing to be replaced because it suddenly disappeared a couple of weeks ago  -  I found that on the Windows 7 computer Outlook.com seems to be working again.  Microsoft has four weeks to get it right and I am not very hopeful on that one.

*  The waterbottle is one of those spray bottles used to dampen ironing and things like that.  It issues a very fine mist and is the ultimate punishment for the cats although I doubt if much, if any, of the mist actually reaches them.  The threat is usually  enough and it is mostly Parsifal who gets the treatment when he has managed to get himself into a place where he knows that he is not allowed.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Rolll 0n, Roll On ...

Parsifal has discovered toilet rolls.  He was trying to drink water from the toilet, a pastime I discourage so I put down the toilet lid.  He jumped onto the lid and discovered that he could reach the toilet roll.  I have had lace-making cats before and they are a dreadful waste of paper so I used a hint which I gleaned from, I think, Facebook.  I squashed the roll so that the cardboard core was no longer round and it no longer rolls freely.

I hate to spoil his fun and he gets bored but he almost got flushed down the toilet when he was small enough to have made it possible which still gives me the cold grues and he is absolutely determined to get behind the TV.  I have blocked it off but he manages to tip the barriers over and if he can't get to the back he paces backwards and forwards in front of the screen and yowls.  There are so many cords and attachments there that I would prefer that he keeps far away from it all.  I am sure that he is bored but ratting is no longer an option for my cats and a run up and down the passage is no substitute for rats.

I have prettified Windows 10 and now have a slide show for my desktop.  I am using some of the photos I took in Morocco with a few from Iran just to see if I can add to the folder without upsetting the delicate workings of the system.  So far, other than Microsoft rearranging my tiles and periodically changing their colours I am coming to terms with it all although there was a major reorganisation on Sunday. 

It is now three months since my Outlook.com email worked and I am not holding my breath that it ever will.  The outages are worldwide and fairly major so I am not sure what Microsoft intends to do.  It will not be possible to sell it if the mail is not working so perhaps they are waiting to make a grand gesture in a month or so. The only alternative is to abandon it altogether; there are other options although Microsoft may not be very happy at the wholesale migration to Gmail which is what seems to be happening at the moment.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Sync or Swim Mk2

I turned on my computer this morning to find that all my contacts had been deleted  -  every single one  -  from my Office Outlook 16 Mail.  I didn't have time this morning to do more than tear out my hair because I had to catch the 9.12 train to get to COTA on time.

This afternoon I thought that if I encouraged my contacts list by putting in my own email address it might be encouraged to find the rest but to no avail.  However this evening I was exploring all the little dots, dashes circles and whatevers which Windows 10 decorates itself with and I found a folder with 122  of what I can only think are efforts to sync my mailbox because the garbage in each one mentioned syncing  -  perhaps to Outlook-Mail.  It almost looks as though Microsoft has taken all the addresses and tried to copy them into the defunct Outlook-Mail where there is, once again, an email from myself in the Drafts Folder.  This happens regularly and is the only activity there.

Anyway, I send a despairing email to Techie (after looking up his company's email address on the internet) and he will try to come around tomorrow.  Sod's Law says that it will all be back in place tomorrow morning.  Meanwhile I have done another copy  onto another flash drive of the contacts still on my Windows 7 computer just in case the first one disappears.  I am trying not to leave anything to chance.  I will put them all into Gmail's contact list but it will be tedious, particularly since I can't remember who a lot of them actually are.

I got out of bed yesterday morning before sunrise to be up in West Perth by 7.45am for my appointment with the Oral Surgeon.  The white patch on the inner side of my cheek, which concerned my dentist so much is an auto-immune condition called Lichen Planus and is right through my mouth; and I thought that it was the chilli and corn chips which was making my mouth sore.  She has ordered a fasting blood test, a biopsy and then another consultation but says that it is most unlikely to become cancerous since I don't smoke and I drink very little.

D3 says that going gluten-free is the first step to treating auto-immune conditions, of which I seem to have several, so I'll give it a try although probably not as rigidly as she and her family do.  I have replaced my muesli with gluten-free stuff and eaten all my chocolates which is a good thing  and now I will probably have to go back to fasting for two days per week to trim the chocolates off again.

And speaking of COTA, my second client who was 30 minutes late had the most stuffed up computer I have EVER seen and when she logged it onto my little hotspot (which had 1.3gb still in it) it drained the lot instantly.  I took the hotspot to the Telstra shop and the man who re-loaded it agreed that it had drained a huge amount very fast so I will not reconnect her and we will have to use the COTA computers unless she gets a serious overhaul  -  which I recommended but it is a Dell and their service facility is in Sydney so I doubt if anything will be done  -  ever!  She got lost coming from one suburb away and phoned for directions three or four times so I doubt if we will do more than cover the basics, internet or not.  And my nice first client for the  day has had his allotted lessons so won't be back.

Friday, June 3, 2016

The patient is out of Intensive Care ...

... but not fully recovered yet.

My computer arrived back yesterday with Windows 10 reloaded and there have been changes since Monday because it was different and has been downloading and upgrading itself ever since I got it back.  Obviously Microsoft is starting to realise that it has to have its house in order by the end of next month.  It is becoming more and more minimalistic by the moment in order to fit it onto a smart phone.  Still no joy on the Outlook Mail front though and an email from D1 who is in Italy at the moment complained that MS has totally stuffed up Hotmail (aka Livemail/Hotmail/Outlook.com).

Yesterday I had to reload Microsoft Office Suite which took ages and today I tackled Family Tree Maker.  I had opted to pay extra and get a backup disc for FTM so it was easy to put it back again and this time it synced very easily with Ancestry.com so I am back in business with my genealogy and I can get back to the B.....mores and all their works.  Then I can give the documents back to my cousin who lent them to me.

However, Microsoft demanded its password in order for me to log in this morning which is annoying and when I tried to change it back to the one I used to use I was told that I could not use a password which had been used before.  Grrrrr!!  I am going to have to modify it a bit or tamely do what Microsoft expects of me.  At least I was able to put my picture of minnie le rose back on the Start Page.

I have an almost clear week next week so I should be able to get back to spinning and knitting.  I have finished but not yet sewn up the kimono sweater I was knitting and am forcing myself to use the Storm yarn which gave me so much grief to spin and then I didn't like.  I knitted a sort of draped vest which I unravelled, re-skeined and put away in storage. This time around I am using it to make a hooded scarf which looks really good with the thick, roughly spun yarn.  I am NOT enjoying the current spinning project which is why I am dragging my feet although I have spun enough yarn for another kimono sweater which is what I will probably be using it for.  I will eventually have enough for a proper sweater so I will decide when I have forced my way to the finish.