Person Woman Man Camera TV

 Anyone who follows USA politics will recognise the title to this piece; it was supposedly a part of Mr Trump's Montreal Cognitive assessment.  When I was working in a psychiatric facility people were asked to punctuate the phrase "no ifs ands or buts" which, in my opinion is a trick question because the "and" stands in place for a comma and therefore a capital at the beginning and a full stop at the end would be sufficient but I think that the I was asked to read and recall the words when I did the test so maybe a couple of Oxford commas would suffice.

However, we are on the subject of cognition and last Saturday D2 and SIL came here with jump leads and trickle charger to try to get D2's silver classic Porsche up and running.

For years I have been babysitting a varying number of D2's classic cars, two Porsches and a classic VeeDub. A few weeks go the order went out that the secure parking to the Apartments was scheduled for cleaning and all cars needed to be removed for the duration.  As the silver Porsche which I was minding had a flat battery D2 brought the battery from the red Porsche which did not fit the slot but she connected it anyway and as the battery was in the boot (which is at the front) there was plenty of room for it.  All went to plan, the car was relocated for 24 hours and then back into my parking slot.

However, trouble struck when she came to return the batteries to their rightful cars; the bonnet had jammed the battery was flat and she was not able to do the exchange.  She consulted SIL who had two suggestions:  (1) recharge the battery through the cigarette lighter or (2) attempt to jump-start the car since the motor was in the back and therefore accessible.  I should add here that access to the residents' parking is via tight corners and a steep, narrow tight curve with no room for a flat-back truck and towing is illegal.

Shortly after these desperate attempts were to be tried they came back up to my apartment and told me that all had been fixed the batteries had been changed over and the car was operating just fine.

In trying to open the bonnet, D2 had been pulling the wrong lever.

The Limerick:-

I have posted this before but it is very clever.  This Limerick was posted in the Classified Ads of a London paper and it was a while before the public penny dropped:-

An Anglican curate in want of a second-hand portable font would exchange for the same a portrait (in frame) of the bishop-elect of Vermont.

A little Less light Now.

 I have fixed the blinking light on my fixed-line phone.  Once again I had to search the internet, ask pointed questions and then choose the simplest solution which worked and now I have the proper steady light which blinks only when the phone rings.  Not that it has rung very often and mostly it is people trying to persuade me that there is something wrong with my internet connection.  Since there were a couple of unanswered calls registered and which my phone identified by their number I was able to trace the calls to China, which figures, from the accent of the "technician".

For some reason all the cold calling spammers are convinced that Telstra rules the phone lines and that Telstra is going to disconnect my landline within 24 hours.  They do not seem to have realised that Telstra is not wireless and that if the telco disconnects my cables they would be cutting off the internet which they would be providing.

And my new mobile phone ran out of charge and would not re-boot once charged.  The only thing which the "how to" manual actually gives information about is how to turn it on again if it becomes unresponsive and that worked as well so I am learning all manner of new skills.  It has all been something of a wild ride and all I now have to document is how to delete the unanswered calls on my landline phone.  I have already done it twice but it is all a bit hit and miss so I need to write it down to fix it firmly in my mind.

Hopefully my final hurdle will be next week when I have to turn off my "computer" (for that read modem) for three consecutive nights while technicians check the connections of the shops below.  I used to turn off my last modem with gay abandon whenever a thunderstorm was in the offing but after the last few weeks I do not trust the new one to behave itself when I turn it  on again. That is an indication of how bruised I feel since the NBN was installed but I can always call Techie to fix it again.

The Limerick:-

Of a wounded war hero I sing

Coming home from the war in the spring:

Oh, he may have been lame

But he came just the same,

A discharge is a wonderful thing!

We Shall Overcome

. . . and this is not just floundering around trying to find out how to write a new Blog Post in the new format (which I have already forgotten but I think that it is a link which appears when I click on 'Posting as pinkozcat' .  It seems that every new 'improvement' on the internet involves searching and extra clicks.

What I am referring to now is my ongoing battle with my i-Pad which has steadfastly refused to recognise my fingerprint ID when I have needed to download a new app;  I even resorted to taking myself into the city at one time to the apple Shop to download something which I deemed essential.

Today I tried, in vain, to download the Chrome App and eventually went into google and asked some pointed questions.  The reply I received was easy, worked and should have been included in with such information as using one of my cats' paws or a spare nipple should I feel like stripping off whenever I needed a new app.

Here is what I did, following the newest instructions:-

Launch 'Settings' App
Navigate to 'Touch ID and Pass-code section 
Turn off toggle for 'I-tunes and App Store'
Re-boot the device (i.e. turn off at the switch at the side and count to 20)
Turn i-Pad on again
IT  WORKED

So simple and yet it seems to be one of Apple's deepest, darkest secrets never to be divulged to frustrated i-Pad users.

The red light is still flashing on my land-line phones but I can phone out, receive calls and the answerphone works so I am not too fussed.  I gather that I have to contact my NBN provider to get it switched off but I am putting that off until I recover from multiple repeats of "My voice is my password".

And the Limerick:-

Whenever a nun's feeling wild
She keeps herself quite undefiled
By thinking of Jesus, 
Contagious diseases
And the bother of having a child.

A little light at the end of the tunnel

Techie came yesterday and networked all my computer stuff and, hopefully, things will now work as they should.  I woke up at 4.30am yesterday morning in a muck sweat because I was going to pay an account but throughout the whole debacle Macquarie Bank has allowed my payments to go through with a minimum of fuss even when things were in a shocking muddle -  and Kobo has relented and is allowing me to load books onto my e-reader again.  It has taken about four weeks to get everything sorted so fingers crossed.

I am sort of getting to almost like my new mobile phone and today I bought it an overcoat and screen protector.  This shift is probably due to the fact that Techie suggested that the blinking lights in my fixed-line phones was because their batteries are about to fail. I have ordered more, noting that their warranty is just three years and it is just three years since I bought the last lot.  Hopefully they will keep the fixed-line phones working for a while as I have had enough of electronics to last me for now.

My birthday dinner had to be cancelled because I had a bad reaction to some new medication so it is going to be this Sunday instead.  In order to network my system I had to identify myself to my internet provider and that included voice recognition and stating my full name, address and birth date.  When I got to my Street name I received an incredulous sound on the other end of the phone and had to spell it.  It is unusual and apparently Italian and no-one quite knows how to pronounce it.  At the end of the transaction the operative on the other end of the line wished me a Happy Birthday.  :)

And speaking of addresses, last Friday I received an express package with the most garbled address on it and delivered to me because the only correct part was my full name and the street address although the number was a Chinese restaurant and when I opened it the sender believed that I had requested some special Optus cabling.  I checked that the Optus outlet downstairs was the Unit requesting the cabling and delivered the whole package to them.  I haven't heard anything further and my attempt to phone the sender produced no results.

The Limerick:-

There once was an old man of Lyme
Who married three wives at a time;
When asked, "Why the third?"
He replied, "One's absurd!
And bigamy, sir, is a crime."

O frabjous day!

After two weeks hanging off the telephone to my Bank I think that things are finally sorted.  Some light crept in on the problem when I found that I was two people and I was locked out when I gave the wrong answers to a security question because the question was set by Person 1 and I had morphed into Person 2.

We have now killed off Person 1 and my test money transfer went through without any problems.  So I need not have bought my so-new mobile phone for which its 'book of works' is still pending.  No doubt there will be a time when I will not regret having spent all that money although SIL says that it should be a tax deduction because I need it for my banking.

I would like to say at this juncture that the 'help people' at MacQuarie Bank have been, throughout, friendly and helpful and although we seem to have come full circle I will be endlessly grateful for their help and patience.

I realised a couple of days ago that my drivers' license was due to expire next week so I made a trip to the Department of Transport by the first free train, figuring that so early on a Monday morning in such horrible weather there would not be a crowd.  There were some people ahead of me and a queue was forming by the time I had organised a replacement so that is another tick off my list.  There are a couple of things pending on my to-do list but nothing urgent and nothing as difficult as my on-line banking problems.

D2 has moved her car out of my secure parking place because the secure parking areas are going to be cleaned tomorrow.  I was too tired yesterday to help her with getting a new battery installed and cleaning the greasy drip trays.  Her cars are all incontinent so the drip trays are essential.

I am still in semi-lockdown and everyone is very good about not getting too close and there are bottles of hand sanitiser at the entrances to all the shops and all the shopping trolleys and baskets are sanitised before being handed to me.  Western Australia still has a closed border and D1 will probably not be able to come to stay at Christmas time which is sad.  Maybe next year.  Anyone coming into the State must quarantine for 14 days.

The Limerick:-

This is an old one but so good that it bears repetition . . .

I sat next to the duchess at tea,
It was just as I feared would be.
Her rumblings abdominal
were simply phenomenal,
And everyone thought it was me.

Full of Sound and fury, Signifying Nothing.

I finally had the National Broadband Network (NBN) connected last Tuesday after a week of working with a dying Hotspot which was revived by a man from the Telstra Shop and using my Surface Pro and i-Pad I was able to access the internet but had no fixed line telephone so I had to replace my banana phone with a Samsung fancy one with all manner of bells and whistles which I have no idea how to use.  Luckily I had saved my contacts to card so they are all on my new phone

The first disaster was when I lost my Kobo account, opened another one which I could not access either after which Kobo seems to have died altogether.  Now I have been denied access to my main bank account.  My credit cards still work and I can fall back on writing cheques again but I feel all at sea as things fall down around me.

I spent over an hour talking to the bank in Sydney this morning and they will try to investigate why my account no longer recognises me and I have spoken to my financial advisor who has, hopefully, still got access and can transfer money to my cheque and credit accounts.  Now I just have to sit back and wait.  Meanwhile Techie will probably come by and check for nasties on the hard drive.  It is his invoice for connecting me to the NBN which I stumbled over; the bank refused to allow the money transfer and refused to accept that I knew the answers to my secret questions.  I know which school I went to, dammit!

We are having an amazing autumn and winter so far with temperatures in the 20s but with very cold nights and we have had a couple of quite severe storms  It looks as though the coming week will be wet.

I have had the results of my bone marrow biopsy and they were as expected so no surprises there and I am to have another blood test and appointment with the hematologist in three months after which I will be monitored every six months unless things deteriorate which hopefully they will not.  D2 came with me to ensure that I could question her in detail afterwards if I have any queries.

The Limerick:-

"I must leave here," said Lady de Vere,
"For these damp airs don't suit me, I fear,"
Said her friend, "Goodness me!
If they do not agree
With your system, why eat pears, my dear?"

. . . and all our yesterdays have lighted fools

I had my bone marrow biopsy on Thursday morning without sedation.  The doctor told me that the only thing which could disturb me was the prick of the needle administering the local anaesthetic and that if I had sedation it would take four hours but without it would only be one hour.  

Just after it was finished a rather dishevelled woman rushed into my room and asked me if it really didn't hurt.  After my re-assurance she rushed out again.  I can only assume that she was a nervous patient who had been sent in by the doctor to re-assure her as she seemed to be a bit panicked.

I will get the verdict next Wednesday  but a week today  -  next Tuesday  -  I am having the NBN installed and hopefully I will be able to keep my phone number.  iiNet has assured me that I will be able to keep it but I know of a couple of people who had to fight to keep their phone numbers .  At least iiNet now knows where I live and Custom Strata has told me how to direct the technician to the 'secure electrical box' to make the connection.

It will take four hours and during that time I will not have a phone connection but I can live with that.  Four hours without the internet will be harder but I have a 

'hotspot' and will have it charged up  -  although there is a certain horrible sameness about the news out of USA now which I am already tired of watching so maybe a good book will be the way to go.

On Thursday Custom Strata is holding an Extra-ordinary Annual General Meeting of the Owners Committee on Zoom.  It seems to be an exercise to see if future meetings can be held that way so I have loaded Zoom, sent in a proxy and told Custom Strata that if I can get into the meeting I will be a silent witness.  As there is no agenda I am not going to miss much if the connection doesn't work; my I-Pad was reluctant to let me load the programme as it does not recognise my fingerprint but finally gave in and loaded the app.

It has been a busy week . . .

I am starting to get Cabin Fever so if the weather holds up  -  and from the forecast it will  -  I might have another try at walking around Lake Claremont.  After the weather we had last weekend there should be some water in it again.

The Limerick:-

A fanatic gun-lover named Crust

Was perverse to the point of disgust.

His idea of a peach

Had a sixteen-inch breech

And a pearl-handled .44 bust.